place
in de back and goes to sleep, and when I wakes up it am jus' gittin'
daylight and dat wagon am a-movin'.'

"I don't say nothin'. I's skeert and waits for dat wagon to stop, so's I
can crawl out. I jus' sits and sits and when it stop I crawls out and
Massa Bragg say, 'Good gosh, look what am crawlin' out de wagon! He look
at me a while and den he say, 'You's too far from home for me to take
you back and you'll git lost if you tries to walk home. I guesses I'll
have to take you with me.' I thinks him am goin' some place and comin'
back, but it am to Texas him come and stop at Birdville. Dat am how dis
nigger come to Texas.

"I's often wish my mammy done whip me so hard I couldn't walk off de
place, 'cause from den on I has mighty hard times. I stays with Massa
Bragg four years and then I hunts for a job where I can git some wages.
I gits it with Massa Joe Henderson, workin' on he farm and I's been
round these parts ever since and farmed most my life.

"I gits into a picklement once years ago. I's 'rested on de street. I's
not done a thing, jus' walkin' 'long de street with 'nother fellow and
dey claim he stole somethin'. I didn't know nothin' 'bout since. Did dey
turn me a-loose? Dey turn me loose after six months on de chain gang. I
works on de road three months with a ball and chain on de legs. After
dat trouble, I sho' picks my comp'ny.

"I marries onct, 'bout forty years ago, and after four years she drops
dead with de heart mis'ry. Us have no chillen so I's alone in de world.
It am all right long as I could work, but five years ago dis right arm
gits to shakin' so bad I can' work no more. For a year now dey pays me
$9.00 pension. It am hard to live on dat for a whole month, but I's glad
to git it.

4210129

MADISON BRUIN, 92, spent his early days as a slave on the Curtis
farm in the blue grass region of Kentucky, where he had some
experience with some of the fine horses for which the state is
famous. Here, too, he had certain contacts with soldiers of John
Morgan, of Confederate fame. His eyes are keen and his voice mellow
and low. His years have not taken a heavy toll of his vitality.

"I's a old Kentucky man. I's born in Fayette County, 'bout five miles
from Lexington, right where dere lots of fine hosses. My old massa was
name Jack Curtis and de old missus was Miss Addie. My mother name Mary
and she die in 1863 and never did see freedom. I don't 'member my dad