a year 'fore I gits to Texas. I walks nearly all the way.
Sometimes I git a li'l ride with farmer. Sometimes I work for folks
'long the way and git fifty cents and start 'gain.

"I got to Texas and try to work for white folks and try to farm. I
couldn't make anything at any work. I made $5.00 a month for I don't
know how many year after the war. Iffen the woods wasn't full of wild
game us niggers all starve to death them days.

"I been marry three time. First wife Eve Shelton. She run off with
'nother man. Then I marries Fay Elly. Us sep'rate in a year. Then I
marry Parlee Breyle. No, I done forgot. 'Fore that I marries Sue
Wilford, and us have seven gals and six boys. They all in New York but
one. He stays here. Then I marries Parlee and us have two gals. Parlee
die three year ago.

"The gov'ment give me a pension and I gits li'l odd jobs round, to get
by. But times been hard and I ain't had much to eat the las' few years.
Not near so good as what old massa done give me. But I gits by somehow.

"I done the bes' I could, 'sidering I's turned out with nothin' when I's
growed and didn't know much, neither. The young folks, they knows more,
'cause they got the chance for schoolin'.

420278

JOHN DAY, 81, was born near Dayton, Tennessee, a slave of Major
John Day. John lives in McLennan Co., Texas.

"I was born near three mile from Dayton. That's over in Tennessee, and
it was the sixteenth of February, in 1856. Master's name was Major John
Day and my father's name was Alfred Day, and he was a first-class
blacksmith. Blacksmithin' was a real trade them days, and my father made
axes and hoes and plow shares and knives and even Jew's harps.

"Master was good to my father and when he done done de day's work he
could work and keep the money he made. He'd work till midnight,
sometimes, and at de end that war he had fifteen hundred dollars in
Confederate money. I never seen such a worker.

"Master John thunk lots of father but he took de notion to sell him one
time, 'cause why, he could git a lot of money for him. He sold him, but
my mama and even Old Missy, cried and took on so dat Master John went
after de men what bought him, to git him back. Dey already done crossed
de river, but master calls and dey brung my father back and he give dem
de money back. Dat de only time master sold one of us.

"He was a preacher and good to us, never beat none of us. He didn't have
no overseer, but saw to all de w