soon settled. Massa plants
mostly cotton and corn and clears more land. I larned to be a coachman,
but on dat place I de ox driver or uses de hoe.

"Yous never drive de ox, did yous? De mule ain't stubborn side of de ox,
de ox am stubborn and den some more. One time I's haulin' fence rails
and de oxen starts to turn gee when I wants dem to go ahead. I calls for
haw, but dey pays dis nigger no mind and keeps agwine gee. Den dey
starts to run and de overseer hollers and asks me, 'Whar you gwine?' I
hollers back, 'I's not gwine, I's bein' took.' Dem oxen takes me to de
well for de water, 'cause if dey gits dry and is near water, dey goes in
spite of de devil.

"De treatment from new massa am good, 'cause of Missy Mary. She say to
Massa Bill, 'if you mus' 'buse de nigger, 'buse yous own.' We has music
and parties. We plays de quill, make from willow stick when de sap am
up. Yous takes de stick and pounds de bark loose and slips it off, den
slit de wood in one end and down one side, puts holes in de bark and put
it back on de stick. De quill plays like de flute.

"I never goes out without de pass, so I never has trouble with de patter
rollers. Nigger Monk, him have de 'sperience with 'em. Dey kotched him
twice and dey sho' makes him hump and holler. After dat he gits pass or
stays to home.

"De War make no diff'runce with us, 'cept de soldiers comes and takes de
rations. But we'uns never goes hungry, 'cause de massa puts some niggers
hustlin' for wil' hawgs. After surrender, missy reads de paper and tells
dat we'uns is free, but dat we'uns kin stay 'til we is 'justed to de
change.

"De second year after de War, de massa sells de plantation and goes back
to Louisiana and den we'uns all lef'. I goes to Laredo for seven year
and works on a stock ranch, den I goes to farmin'. I gits married in
1879 to Mary Robinson and we'uns has 14 chilluns. Four of dem lives
here.

"I works hard all my life 'til 1935 and den I's too old. My wife and I
lives on de pensions we gits.

420234

[Illustration: Scott Hooper]

SCOTT HOOPER, 81, was born a slave of the Rev. Robert Turner, a
Baptist minister who owned seven slave families. They lived on a
small farm near Tenaha, then called Bucksnort, in Shelby County,
Texas. Scott's father was owned by Jack Hooper, a neighboring
farmer. Scott married Steve Hooper when she was thirteen and they
had eight children, whose whereabouts are now unknown to h