as Tom Hill, but us called him 'Debbil
Hill.'

Old Debbil Hill, he used to whup me and the other niggers if we don't
jump quick enough when he holler and he stake us out like you stake out
a hide and whup till we bleed. Many the time I set down and made a
eight-plait whup, so he could whup from the heels to the back of the
head 'til he figger he get the proper ret'ibution. Sometime he take salt
and rub on the nigger so he smart and burn proper and suffer mis'ry.
They was a caliboose right on the plantation, what look like a
ice-house, and it was sho' bad to git locked up in it.

"Us got provisions 'lowanced to us every Saturday night. If you had two
in the family, they 'lowanced you one-half gallon 'lasses and 12 to 15
pounds bacon and a peck of meal. We have to take the meal and parch it
and make coffee out of it. We had our flours. One of them we called
biscuit flour and we called it 'shorts.' We had rye and wheat and buck
grain.

"If they didn't provision you 'nough, you jus' had to slip 'round and
git a chicken. That easy 'nough, but grabbin' a pig a sho' 'nough
problem. You have to cotch him by the snoot so he won't squeal, and
clomp him tight while you knife him. That ain't stealin', is it? You has
to keep right on workin' in the field, if you ain't 'lowanced 'nough,
and no nigger like to work with his belly groanin'.

"When the white preacher come he preach and pick up his Bible and claim
he gittin the text right out from the good Book and he preach: 'The Lord
say, don't you niggers steal chickens from your missus. Don't you steal
YOUR MARSTER'S hawgs.' That would be all he preach.

"Us niggers used to have a prayin' ground down in the hollow and
sometime we come out of the field, between 11 and 12 at night, scorchin'
and burnin' up with nothin' to eat, and we wants to ask the good Lawd to
have mercy. We puts grease in a snuff pan or bottle and make a lamp. We
takes a pine torch, too, and goes down in the hollow to pray. Some gits
so joyous they starts to holler loud and we has to stop up they mouth. I
see niggers git so full of the Lawd and so happy they draps unconscious.

"I kep' a eye on the niggers down in the cotton patch. Sometime they
lazy 'round and if I see the overseer comin' from the big house I sings
a song to warn 'em, so they not git whupped, and it go like this:

"'Hold up, hold up, American Spirit!
Hold up, hold up, H-O-O-O-O-O-O-O!'

"We used to go huntin' and they was lots of game, bea