oll grandma would make for my Christmas present. Come New Year's
Day, it was time to go back to wuk and evvy slave was made to do a heap
of wuk on dat day to start de year off right.

"Slaves had a big old time at cornshuckin's. Dey didn't care so much
'bout de somepin' t'eat jus' so dey got plenty of whiskey to drink, and
when dey got all het up on dat you could hear 'em a mile away a'whoopin'
and hollerin'. Sometimes dey kilt a cow and throwed it in a pot and
biled it down wid dumplin's, seasoned hot wid red pepper."

Asked what games she played as a child, Dosia replied: "Gentlemen! What
de giver'ment don't want to know, ain't wuth knowin' no how. What I
played? Well, now, let me see: =Mollie, Mollie Bright= was one of our
games; =Hiding de Switch= was de one whar you counted 'em out; dat
countin' run lak dis: 'Ten, ten, double-ten, forty-five, fifteen.'
Gentlemen! I could run lak a snake.

"Ha'nts? Why, I kin see dem things anytime. Dis hyar place whar I lives
is full of ha'nts, but dese folks would git mad wid me if I told 'bout
'em. Now, back in Greene County, I kin talk 'bout dem ha'nts all right.
Back dar Mrs. Babe Thaxton had a mighty pretty flower yard. She used to
tell me dat if I let anybody git any flowers from her yard atter she was
daid, she would sho' ha'nt me. She had done been daid a good while when
I was gittin' some flowers from her yard and a gal come along and axed
me to give her some. I started cuttin' flowers for her. At dat Miss
Babe, she riz up over me lak she was gwine to burn me up. She looked at
me hard and went off and sot in a tree whar she could look right down on
me. I ain't never cut no flowers out of dat yard no more. Now 'bout Raw
Head and Bloody Bones, Honey, don't you know dat ain't nothin' but a
cows head what's done been skint? Old folks used to ax us: 'Has you seed
Raw Head and Bloody Bones?' Us would run over one 'nother tryin' to git
dar fust to see him, and it allus turned out to be jus' a old skint up
cow head. Den in de nighttime us would have wild dreams 'bout dem old
skint cow heads.

"De onliest song I ever heared de Niggers sing in de fields run somepin
lak dis: 'Tarrypin, Tarrypin, (terrapin) when you comin' over, For to
see your wife and fam-i-lee.' Dey must a been wantin' to eat turkle
(turtle), when dey was a-singin' dat song.

"Old Mist'ess was mighty special good to her slaves when dey was sick.
Fust thing she done was send for de doctor. I kin see him now. He