't stay there with them ha'nts dancing
'round and carryin' us a merry gait.

"At Churchill's place my mother made cotton and corn. I don't know
what they give her for the work, but I know they paid her. She was a
hustling old lady. The war was still goin' on. Churchill was a Yankee.
He went off and left the plantation in the hands of his oldest son.
His son was named Jim Churchill. That is the old war; that is the
first war ever got up--the Civil War. Ma stayed at Churchill's long
enough to make two or three crops. I don't know just how long.
Churchill and them wanted to own her--them and John Addison.

"There was three of us big enough to work and help her in the field.
Three--I made four. There was my oldest sister, my brother, and my
next to my oldest sister, and myself--Annie, John, Martha, and me. I
chopped cotton and corn. I used to tote the leadin' row. Me and my
company walked out ahead. I was young then, but my company helped me
pick that cotton. That nigger could pick cotton too. None of the res'
of them could pick anything for looking at him.

"Mother stayed at Churchill's till plumb after the war. My father died
before the war was over. They paid my mother some money and said she
would get the balance. That means there was more to come, doesn't it?
But they didn't no more come. They all died and none of them got the
balance. I ain't never got nothin' either. I gave my papers to Adams
and Singfield. I give them to Adams; Adams is a Negro that one-legged
Wash Jordan sent to me. They all say he's a big crook, but I didn't
know it. Adams kept coming to my house until he got my papers and then
when he got the papers he didn't come no more.

"After Adams got the papers, he carried me down to Lawyer Singfield's.
He said I had to be sworn in and it would cost me one dollar.
Singfield wrote down every child's name and everybody's age. When he
got through writing, he said that was all and me and Pearl made up one
dollar between us and give it to him. And then we come on away. We
left Mr. Adams and Mr. Singfield in Singfield's office and we left the
papers there in the office with them. They didn't give me no receipt
for the papers and they didn't give me no receipt for the dollar.
Singfield's wife has been to see me several times to sell me
something. She wanted to git me to buy a grave, but she ain't never
said nothin' about those papers. You think she doesn't know 'bout 'em?
I have seen Adams once down to Jim Pe