me
to her daughter and my sister to her son. My mother was kep' hired out
all the time, cooking; and after freedom, she just took to washin' and
ironin'. My grandfather bought his time and my grandmother's time out.
They didn't stay with her.

"I've heard my mother talk about coffee. They roasted beans and made
coffee. She says, out on the plantation, they would take bran and put it
in a tub and have 'em stir it up with water in it and let all the white
go to the bottom and dip it off and strain it and make starch. I have
made starch out of flour over and often, myself. I had four or five
little girls; and I had to keep 'em like pins. In them days they wore
little calico dresses, wide and full and standin' out, and a bonnet to
match every dress.

"I used to hear my grandmother tell about the good times they used to
have. They would go from one plantation to another and have quiltin's
and corn huskin's. And they would dance. They didn't have dances then
like they do now. The white people would give them things to eat. They
would have to hoof it five or six miles and didn't mind it.

"They had what they called _patros_, and if you didn't have a pass they
would whip you and put you in jail. Old Man Burns was hired at the
courthouse, and if the marsters had slaves that they didn't want to
whip, they would send them to the courthouse to be whipped. Some of the
marsters was good and some wasn't. There was a woman, oh, she was the
meanest thing! I don't know if she had a husband--I never did hear
anything about him. When she would get mad at one of her slave women,
she would make the men tie her down, and she had what they called
cat-o'-nine-tails, and after she got the blood to come, she would dip it
in salt and pepper and whip her again. Oh, she was mean! My mother's
marster was good; he wouldn't whip any of his slaves. But his wife
wasn't good. If she got mad at the women, when he would come home she
would say: 'John, I want you to whip Liza.' Or Martha. And he would say,
'Them are your slaves. You whip them.' He was good and she was mean.

"When my aunt would go to clean house, she (Mrs. Wilcox) would turn all
the pictures in the house but one, the meanest looking one--you know how
it always looks like a picture is watching you everywhere you go--and
she would tell her if she touched a thing or left a bit of dirt or if
she didn't do it good, this picture would tell. And she believed it.

"My grandmother told a tale on