hen I run back and told Miss Becky. I said, 'What is they?' She told ma
to put all us under the bed to hide us from the soldiers. One big Yankee
stepped inside and says to Miss Becky, 'You own any niggers?' She say,
'No.' Here I come outen under the bed and ask her fer bread. Then the
Yankee lieutenant cursed her. He made the other four come outen under
the bed. They all commenced to cryin' and I commenced to cry. We never
seed nobody lack him fore. We was scared to deaf of him. He talked so
loud and bad. He loaded us in a wagon. Mama too went wid him straight
to Helena. He put us in a camp and kept us. Mama cooked fer the Yankees
six or seven months. She heard em--the white soldiers--whisperin' round
bout freedom. She told em, 'You ain't goiner keep me here no longer.'
She took us walkin' back to her old master and ax him for us a home.
Then she married man on the place. He was real old. I had five half
brothers and sisters then. I was a good size girl then.

"They had run him and some more men to Texas. They went in a wagon and
walked. They made one crop there. He said fifteen or sixteen families
what belong to different owners went out there. They heard some people
talking--overheard it was free times. They picked up and left there at
night. They dodged round in the woods and traveled at night. When he got
back he made terms to work as a share cropper.

"Master, he didn't give us nuthin'. I didn't hear they would give em
anything. Truth of it was they didn't have much to keep less givin' the
niggers something. We all had little to eat and wear and a plenty wood
to burn and a house to shelter us. The work didn't slack up none. The
fences down, the outhouses had to have more boards tack on. No stock
cept a scrub or so. We had no garden seed cept what be borrowed round
and raised. Times was hard. We had biscuits bout once a week, lucky if
we got that.

"The Ku Klux got after our papa. They fixin' to kill him. He hid in the
gullies. They come to our house once or twice but I never seed em. Papa
come once or twice and took us all and hid us fore sundown. They quit
huntin' him.

"We farmed wid Mr. Hess. Mr. Herrin wouldn't let nobody bother his
hands.

"We had good times. I danced. We had candy pullings bout at the houses.
We had something every week. I used to dance in the courthouse at
Clarendon--upstairs. Paul Wiley was head music man. All colored
folks--colored fiddlers.

"I was married over fifty years. Bunt Su