about fourteen.
You see, honey, I never could read or write, but I can count, and I can
remember--Lawdy! how I can remember. Well, there I was on the block,
just scairt and shivering--I was just cold all over--and them there
nigger traders was jest a talkin', when down that long lane came Massa
Sid, and I'm tellin' you, it was the Dear Lawd that sent him. He was a
ridin' on his hoss, and he stopped right in front of me, standing there
on the block. He looked at his boys, then he turned to them nigger
traders and yelled out, "What you all doin' here?" The boys told him
there was just so many niggers on the place, and they wanted some money
and when the nigger traders come along they thought they would sell a
few niggers. Honey, I'm tellin' you, Massa Sid turned to them nigger
traders and said, "you nigger traders get out of here. These are my
niggers and I don't sell niggers. I can feed them all, I don't want any
help." He grabbed me right off of the block and put me on the hoss in
front of him and set me down in front of my cabin. Sceered, oh Lawdy I
was sceered! No, suh, Massa Sid never sold no niggers."

"I must tell you about what happened one night while we were all there
in the camp. One of the massa's boys that loved my uncle, came crawling
on all fours, just like a pig, into camp. He passed the pickets, and
when he found my uncle he laid there on the ground in my uncle's arms
and cried like a baby. My uncle was old but he cried too and after a
while he told the boy that he must go back--he was 'fraid that the
pickets would see him and he would be shot, so he went with him,
crawling on all fours just like a pig, till he got him past the pickets,
and our young master never saw my uncle any more. Oh, honey, them was
heart-breakin' times. The first night we was in camp, my mammy got to
thinking about Mother Hulsie and how she was left all alone with all the
work, and not a soul to help her. The blue coats had gone through the
house and upset everything, so in the morning she asked the captain if
she could ask just one thing of him, and that was that she and my uncle
go back to Mother Hulsie just for the day, and help put everything away
and do the washing. The captain said they could go, but they must be
back by five o'clock, and not one nigger child could go along, so they
went back for the day and mammy did all the washing, every rag that she
could find, and my uncle chopped and stacked outside the house, all the