master to take off to town,
That coon was full of good old fat,
And master brung me a new beaver hat.'

"Part of 'nother song go like this:

"'Master say, you breath smell of brandy,
Nigger say, no, I's lick 'lasses candy.'

"When old master come to the lot and hear the men singin' like that, he
say, 'Them boys is lively this mornin', I's gwine git a big day's
plowin' done. They did, too, 'cause them big Missouri mules sho' tore up
that red land. Sometime they sing:

"'This ain't Christmas mornin', just a long summer day,
Hurry up, yellow boy and don't run 'way,
Grass in the cotton and weeds in the corn,
Get in the field, 'cause it soon be morn.'

"At night when the hands come in they didn't do nothin' but eat and cut
up round the quarters. They'd have a big ball in a big barn there on the
place and sixty and seventy on the floor at once, singin':

"'Juba this and Juba that,
Juba killed a yaller cat.
Juba this and Juba that,
Hold you partner where you at.'

"The whites preached to the niggers and the niggers preached to
theyselves. Gen'man sho' could preach good them times; everybody cried,
they preached so good. I's a mourner when I git free.

"I's big 'nough to work round the house when war starts, but not big
'nough to be studyin' 'bout marryin'. I's sho' sorry when we's sot
free. Old master didn't tell his niggers they free. He didn't want them
to go. On a day he's gone, two white men come and showed us a piece of
paper and say we's free now. One them men was a big mill man and told
mama he'll give her $12.00 a month and feed her seven li'l niggers if
she go cook for his millhands. Papa done die in slavery, so mama goes
with the man. I run off and hid under the house. I wouldn't leave till I
seed master. When he come home he say, 'Lizzie, why didn't you go?' I
say, 'I don't want to leave my preserves and light bread.' He let me
stay.

"Then I gits me a li'l man. He works for master in the store and I works
round the house. Master give me two dresses and a pair of shoes when I
married. We lived with him a year or two and then come to Marshall. My
husband worked on public work and I kept house for white folks and we
saved our money and buyed this li'l farm. My man's dead fourteen years
now and my gal and her husband keeps the farm goin'.

"Me and my man didn't have nothin' when we left Nacogdoches, but we
works hard and saves our money and buyed this farm. It 'pear like these