when I was a li'l one, I wore
lowerin's, like the rest of the niggers. That was things made from
cotton sackin'. Most the boys wore shirttails till they was big
yearlin's. When they bought me red russets from the town, I cried and
cried. I didn't want to wear no rawhide shoes. So they took 'em back.
They had a weakness for my cryin'. I did have plenty fine clothes, good
woolen suits they spinned on the place, and doeskins and fine linens. I
druv in the car'age with the white folks and was 'bout the mos' dudish
nigger in them parts.

"I used to tend the nurslin' thread. The reason they called it that was
when the mammies was confined with babies havin' to suck, they had to
spin. I'd take them the thread and bring it back to the house when it
was spinned. If they didn't spin seven or eight cuts a day, they'd git a
whuppin'. It was consid'ble hard on a woman when she had a frettin'
baby. But every mornin' them babies had to be took to the big house, so
the white folks could see if they's dressed right. They was money tied
up in li'l nigger young'uns.

"They whupped the women and they whupped the mens. I used to work some
in the tan'ry and we made the whips. They'd tie them down to a stob, and
give 'em the whuppin'. Some niggers, it taken four men to whup 'em, but
they got it. The nigger driver was meaner than the white folks. They'd
better not leave a blade of grass in the rows. I seed 'em beat a nigger
half a day to make him 'fess up to stealin' a sheep or a shoat. Or
they'd whup 'em for runnin' away, but not so hard if they come back of
their own 'cordance when they got hungry and sick in the swamps. But
when they had to run 'em down with the nigger dogs, they'd git in bad
trouble.

"The Carters never did have any real 'corrigible niggers, but I heard of
'em plenty on other places. When they was real 'corrigible, the white
folks said they was like mad dogs and didn't mind to kill them so much
as killin' a sheep. They'd take 'em to the graveyard and shoot 'em down
and bury 'em face downward, with their shoes on. I never seed it done,
but they made some the niggers go for a lesson to them that they could
git the same.

"But I didn't even have to carry a pass to leave my own place, like the
other niggers. I had a cap with a sign on it: 'Don't bother this
nigger, or there will be Hell to pay.' I went after the mail, in the
town. It come in coaches and they put on fresh hosses at Pineapple. The
coachman run the hosses in