did." She said she
had seen the blood running down the backs of some slaves after they had
been beaten.

One day a girl about 16 years of age came to her house and said she'd
just as leave be dead as to take the beatings her master gave her, so
one day she did go into the woods and eat some poison oak. "She died,
too."

On one plantation she saw an old woman who used to get so many beatings
that they put a frame work around her body and ran it up into a kind of
steeple and placed a bell in the steeple. "Dat woman had to go around
with that bell ringing all the time."

"I got plenty to eat in dem days, got just what the white folks ate. One
day Master killed a deer, brung it in the house, and gave me some of the
meat. There was plenty of deer den, plenty of wild turkeys, and wild
hogs. Master told me whenever I seed a deer to holler and he would kill
it."

When slaves were freed her mother moved right away to her father's
place, but she said the two sons of her master would not give her mother
anything to eat then. "Master was willing, but dem boys would not give
us anything to live on, not even a little meal."

"After the Civil War was over and the Yankee soldiers came to our place,
dey just took what they wanted to eat, went into de stable and leave
their poor, broken-down horses and would ride off with a good horse.
They didn't hurt anybody, but just stole all they wanted."

One day she said her master pointed out Abe Lincoln to her. A long line
of cavalry rode down the road and presently there came Abe Lincoln
riding a horse, right behind them. She didn't have much to say about
Jeff Davis, except she heard the grown people talking about him. "Booker
Washington? Well, he was all right trying to help the colored people and
educate them. But he strutted around and didn't do much. People ought to
learn to read the Bible, but if you educate people too high it make a
fool out of them. They won't work when they gets an education, just
learns how to get out of work, learns how to steal enough to keep alive.
They are not taught how to work, how do you expect them to work when
they ain't taught to work? Well, I guess I would steal too before I
starved to death, but I ain't had to steal yet. No man can say he ever
gave me a dollar but what I didn't earn myself. I was taught to work and
I taught my chilluns to work, but this present crowd of niggers! They
won't do."

She stated her mother had twelve children and the log