ed to. She brush us all out wid the broom, tell us go build a play
house. Children made the prettiest kinds of play houses them days. We
mede the walls outer bark sometimes. We jus' marked it off on the ground
out back of the smokehouse. We'd ride and bring up the cows. We'd take
the meal to a mill. It was the best hoecake bread can be made. It was
water ground meal.

"We had a plenty to eat, jus' common eatin'. We had good cane molasses
all the tine. The clothes was thin 'bout all time 'ceptin' when they be
new and stubby. We got new clothes in the fall of the year. They last
till next year.

"I never seed Massa Tom whoop nobody. I seen Miss Liza Jane turn up the
little children's dresses and whoop 'em with a little switch, and
straws, and her hand. She 'most blister you wid her bare hand. Plenty
things we done to get whoopin's. We leave the gates open; we'd run the
calves and try to ride 'em; we'd chunk at the geese. One thing that make
her so mad was for us to climb up in her fruit trees and break off a
limb. She wouldn't let us be eating the green fruit mostly 'cause it
would make us sick. They had plenty trees. We had plenty fruit to eat
when it was ripe. Massa Tom's little colored boys have big ears. He'd
pull 'em every time he pass one of 'em. He didn't hurt 'em but it might
have made their ears stick out. They all had big ears. He never slapped
nobody as ever I heard 'bout.

"I don't know how my parents was sold. I'm sure they was sold. Pa's name
ivas Jim Bradley (Bradly). He come from one of the Carolinas. Ma was
brought to Mississippi from Georgia. All the name I heard fer her was
Ella Logan. When freedom cone on, I heard pa say he thought he stand a
chance to find his folks and them to find him if he be called Bradley.
He did find some of his brothers, and ma had some of her folks out in
Mississippi. They come out here hunting places to do better. They wasn't
no Bradleys. I was little and I don't recollect their names. Seem lack
one family we called Aunt Mandy Thornton. One was Aunt Tillie and Uncle
Mack. They wasn't Thorntons. I knows that.

"My folks was black, black as I is. Pa was stocky, guinea man. Ma was
heap the biggest. She was rawbony and tall. I love to see her wash. She
could bend 'round the easier ever I seed anybody. She could beat the
clothes in a hurry. She put out big washings, on the bushes and a cord
they wove and on the fences. They had paling fence 'round the garden.

"Massa Tom didn