first work I done was raisin' cotton and sugar cane and sweet and
Irish 'taters. I used to cook sugar.

"I marry on twenty-second of February. My wife was Medora Labor. She
been dead thirty-five year now. I never marry no second woman. I love my
wife so much I never want nobody else. Us had six chillen. Two am
livin'.

"Goin' back when I a slave, massa have a store. When de priest come dey
hold church in dat store. Old massa have sev'ral boys. Dey went after
some de slave gals. Dey have chillen by dem. Dem gals have dere cabins
and dere chillen, what am half white.

"After while dem boys marry. But dey allus treat dey chillen by de slave
womens good. Dey white wife treat dem good, too, most like dey dere own
chillen.

"Old massa have plenty money. Land am only two bits de acre. Some places
it cost nothing. Dey did haulin' in ox-carts. A man what had mules had
something extra.

"Us have plenty wild game, wild geese and ducks. Fishin' am mighty good.
Dey was 'gaters, too. I seed dem bite a man's arm off.

"If a slave feelin' bad dey wouldn't make him work. My uncle and my
mammy dey never work nothing to speak of. Dey allus have some kind
complaint. Ain't no tellin' what it gwine be, but you could 'low
something ailin' dem!

"I 'member dey a white man. He had a gif'. I don't care what kind of
animal, a dog or a hoss, dat man he work on it and it never leave you or
you house. If anybody have toothache or earache he take a brand new nail
what ain't never work befo' and work dat round you tooth or ear. Dat
break up de toothache or earache right away. He have li'l prayer he say.
I don't know what it was.

"I's seed ghosties. I talk with dem, too. Sometimes dey like people.
Sometimes dey like animal, maybe white dog. I allus feel chilly when dey
come round me. I talk with my wife after she dead. She tell me, 'Don't
you forgit to pray.' She say dis world corrupt and you got to fight it
out."

420230

MATTIE GILMORE lives in a little cabin on E. Fifth Avenue, in
Corsicana, Texas. A smile came to her lips, as she recalled days
when she was a slave in Mobile, Alabama. She has no idea how old
she is. Her master, Thomas Barrow, brought his slaves to Athens,
Texas, during the Civil War, and Mattie had two children at that
time, so she is probably about ninety.

"I's born in Mobile, Alabama, and I don't have no idea when. My white
folks never did tell me how old I was. My own dear