e dyed checks. They was pretty. I had to sew
seams. Marster had to buy shoes for us, he give us good-soled ones."

Easter Jones, who had only bitter memories of the slavery period said,
"Sometimes we eben had to pull fodder on Sunday. But what I used to hate
worse'n anything was wipin' dishes. Dey'd make me take de dish out de
scaldin' water, den if I drap it dey whip me. Dey whip you so hard your
back bleed, den dey pour salt and water on it. And your shirt stick to
your back, and you hadder get somebody to grease it 'fore you kin take
it off."

Ellen Campbell, who used to belong to Mr. William Eve said she did only
simple jobs about the plantation in childhood, "When I was 'bout ten
years old dey started me totin' water--you know ca'yin' water to de
hands in de field. 'Bout two years later I got my first field job
'tending sheep. When I wus fifteen year old Missus gib me to Miss Eva,
you know she de one marry Colonel Jones. My young Mistus was fixin' to
git married, but she couldn't on account de war, so she brought me to
town and rented me out to a lady runnin' a boarding house. De rent wus
paid to my Mistus. One day I was takin' a tray from de out-door kitchen
to de house when I stumbled and dropped it. De food spill all over de
ground. Da lady got so mad she picked up de butcher knife and chop me in
de haid. I went runnin' till I come to da place where mah white folks
live. Miss Eva took me and wash de blood out mah head and put medicine
on it, and she wrote a note to de lady and she say, 'Ellen is my slave,
give to me by my mother. I wouldn't had dis happen to her no more dan to
me. She won't come back dere no more.'"

Willis Bennefield, who was a slave on Dr. Balding Miller's plantation in
Burke County, said, "I wuk in de fiel' and I drove him 30 years. He was
a doctor. He had a ca'iage and a buggy, too. My father driv de ca'iage.
I driv de doctor. Sometimes I was fixin' to go to bed and had to hitch
up my horse and go five or six miles. He had regular saddle horses, two
pair o' horses fer de ca'iage. He was a rich man--riches' man in Burke
County--had three hundred slaves. He made his money on de plantachuns,
not doctorin'."

Fannie Fulcher, who was also one of Dr. Miller's slaves, and Willis
Bennefield's sister gives this account of the slaves' work in earning
extra money. "De marster give 'em ev'y day work clothes, but dey bought
de res' deyselves. Some raise pumpkins, squashes, potatoes, all sich
things l