urn 48 times and den 'cluck'. Dat was for dem to be able to tell
we was workin'.

"Dere was plenty wild game, possums, rabbits, turkey and so on. Dere was
fish, too, in de creek. I was de leader of de bunch. We would ketch
little fish in de creek. We'd cook a lot of fish and den we'd put a rag
rug in de yard under a big mulberry tree and pour de fish out on dat and
den eat 'em.

"Old marster never beat his slaves and he didn' sell 'em. But some of de
owners did. If a owner had a big woman slave and she had a little man
for her husban' and de owner had a big man slave, dey would make de
little husban' leave, and make de woman let de big man be her husban',
so's dere be big chillen, which dey could sell well. If de man and woman
refused, dey'd get whipped.

"Course whippin' made a slave hard to sell, maybe couldn' be sold,
'cause when a man went to buy a slave he would make him strip naked and
look him over for whip marks and other blemish, jus' like dey would a
horse. But even if it done damage to de sale to whip him, dey done it,
'cause dey figgered, kill a nigger, breed another--kill a mule, buy
another.

"I'll never forget de rice patch. It shore got me some whippin's, 'cause
my daddy tell me to watch de birds 'way from dat rice, and sometimes
dey'd get to it. It jus' seem like de blackbirds jus' set 'round and
watched for dat rice to grow up where dey could get it. We would cut a
block off a pine tree and build a fire on it and burn it out. Den we
would cut down into it and scrape out all de char, and den put de rice
in dere and beat and poun' it with a pestle till we had all de grain
beat out de heads. Den we'd pour de rice out on a cloth and de chaff and
trash would blow away.

"Our marster he drilled men for de army. De drill groun' was 'bout a
mile from our place. He was a dead shot with a rifle and had a rifle
with an extry long barrel.

"De Yankees told us niggers when dey freed us after de war dat dey would
give each one of us 40 acres of land and a mule. De nearest I'se ever
come to dat is de pension of 'leven dollars I gets now. But I'se jus' as
thankful for dat as I can be. In fac', I don't see how I could be any
more thankful it 'twas a hun'erd and 'leven dollars.

"A man told me a nigger woman told his wife she would ruther be slave
than free. Well, I think, but I might be wrong, anybody which says that
is tellin a lie. Dere is sumpin' 'bout bein' free and dat makes up for
all de hardships. I'se