He had cullud women
there he kep' all the time to weave and spin. They kep' cloth made.

"On Saturday nights, we jes' knocked 'round the place. Christmas? I don'
know as I was ever home Christmas. My boss kep' me hired out. The slaves
never had no Christmas presents I know of. And big dinners, I never was
at nary one. They didn' give us nothin, I tell you, but a grubbin' hoe
and axe and the whip. They had co'n shuckin's in them days and co'n
shellin's, too. We would shuck so many days and so many days to shell it
up.

"We would shoot marbles when we was little. It was all the game the
niggers ever knowed, was shootin' marbles.

"After work at nights there wasn't much settin' 'round; you'd fall into
bed and go to sleep. On Saturday night they didn' git together, they
would jes' sing at their own houses. Oh, yes'm, I 'member 'em singin'
'Run, nigger, run,' but it's too far back for me to 'member those other
songs. They would raise up a song when they was pickin' cotton, but I
don' 'member much about those songs.

"My old boss, I'm boun' to give him praise, he treated his niggers
right. He made 'em work, though, and he whipped 'em, too. But he fed
good, too. We had rabbits and possums once in awhile. Hardly ever any
game, but you might git a deer sometimes.

"Let 'em ketch you with a gun or a piece of paper with writin' on it and
he'd whip you like everything. Some of the slaves, if they ever did git
a piece of paper, they would keep it and learn a few words. But they
didn' want you to know nothin', that's what, nothin' but work. You would
think they was goin' to kill you, he would whip you so if he caught you
with a piece of paper. You couldn' have nothin' but a pick and axe and
grubbin' hoe.

"We never got to play none. Our boss hired us out lots of times. I don'
know what he got for us. We farmed, cut wood, grubbed, anything. I
herded sheep and I picked cotton.

"We got up early, you betcha. You would be out there by time you could
see and you quit when it was dark. They tasked us. They would give us
200 or 300 pounds of cotton to bring in and you would git it, and if you
didn' git it, you better, or you would git it tomorrow, or your back
would git it. Or you'd git it from someone else, maybe steal it from
their sacks.

"My grandfather, he would tell us things, to keep the whip off our
backs. He would say, 'Chillen, work, work and work hard. You know how
you hate to be whipped, so work hard!' And of course w