e. We made all our soap and lye hominy by the
washpots full. Mother cooked and washed and kept house. She took the
lead wid the house-work. Miss Nippy ride off when she got ready. Mother
went right on wid the work. I took care of the chickens and took the
cows to the pasture. I helped to wash clothes. I stood on a block to
turn meat. We had a brick stove and a grill to fry meat on. We had good
clothes and good to eat. After I was grown I'd go back to see Miss
Nippy. She raised me. She say, 'I thought so much of your mama. I love
you. I hope you live a long time.' Mama had a hard time and Miss Nippy
knowd all about it.

"After Bob Young bought mother he went back and bought Aunt Sarah. They
growed up together. They could dance with a glass of water on their
heads and never spill a drap.

"Ma said when she married they had a corn shucking and a big dinner four
o'clock in the morning. Her name was Luiza. She had two children by him.
Aunt Jane on Welches place took him away from her. He quit mother cold
to go wid her. After freedom she married Ben Pitts. The way she married
at the corn shucking, they jumped over the broom back'ards and Master
Bob Young 'nounced it. She was killed no time after freedom, but she had
had six children. Miss Nippy kept me. She was good to me and trained me
to read. We all never left after freedom. I never left till I was good
and grown.

"I always thought Master Bob Young buried his money during the War.
Children wasn't allowed to watch and ask questions. I was standing in
the chimney corner and seen him bury a box of something in the flower
garden. I was in Miss Nippy's room. I never did know if it was money or
what. He had a old yaller dog followed him all the time. Truman was a
speckled dog set about on the front porch to bark.

"Sam, the boy that was bought when I was in St. Louis, was hard to
control. Bob Young beat him. He died. They said he killed him. They
buried him in the white folks' cemetery.

"They celebrated Christmas visiting and big parties. We would have
eggnog and ten or fifteen cakes. Master Bob Young was a consumptive. He
had it thirty-five years. They all died out with it. They kept a big ten
or fifteen gallon demijohn with willow woven around the bottom full of
whiskey, all the time upstairs. They kept the door locked.

"I stole miny ah drink. Find the door unlocked. I got too much one time.
It made me sick. I thought I had a chill. She thought I been upstairs.
They