s, and allus had plenty of clothes and shoes.

"I seed the soldiers comin' and gwine to the war, and 'members when
Massa William left to go fight for the South. His boy, Billie, was
sixteen, and tended the place while massa's away. Massa done say he'd
let the niggers go without fightin'. He didn't think war was right, but
he had to go. He 'serts and comes home befo' the war gits goin' good and
the soldiers come after him. He run off to the bottoms, but they was on
hosses and overtook him. I was there in the room when they brung him
back. One of them says, 'Jackson, we ain't gwine take you with us now,
but we'll fix you so you can't run off till we git back.' They put red
pepper in his eyes and left. Missie cried. They come back for him in a
day or two and made my father saddle up Hawk-eye, massa's best hoss.
Then they rode away and we never seed massa 'gain. One day my brother,
Alex, hollers out, 'Oh, Missie, yonder is the hoss, at the gate, and
ain't nobody ridin' him.' Missie throwed up her hands and says, 'O,
Lawdy, my husban' am dead!' She knowed somehow when he left he wasn't
comin' back.

"Old Missie freed us but said we had a home as long as she did. Me and
my husban' stays 'bout a year, but my folks stays till she marries
'gain.

"My brother-in-law, Sam Pitman, tells us how he put one by the Ku
Kluxers. Him and some niggers was out one night and the Kluxers chases
them on hosses. They run down a narrow road and tied four strands of
grapevine 'cross the road, 'bout breast high to a hoss. The Kluxers come
gallopin' down that road and when the hosses hit that grapevine, it
throwed them every which way and broke some their arms. Sam used to
laugh and tell how them Kluxers cussed them niggers.

"Me and my husban' come to Marshall the year after surrender, and I is
lived here every since. My man works on farms till he got on the
railroad. I's been married four times and raised six chillen. The young
people is diff'rent from what we was, but diff'rent times calls for
diff'rent ways, I 'spect. My chillen allus done the best they could by
me.

420272

SILVIA KING, French Negress of Marlin, Texas, does not know her
age, but says that she was born in Morocco. She was stolen from her
husband and three children, brought to the United States and sold
into slavery. Silvia has the appearance of extreme age, and may be
close to a hundred years old, as she thinks she is, because of her