. Then came the great
sugar-cane grinding time, when they were making the molasses, and we
children would be hanging round, drinking the sugar-cane juice, and
awaiting the moment to help ourselves to everything good. We did,
too, making ourselves sticky and dirty with the sweet stuff being
made. Not only were the slave children there, but the little white
children from Massa's house would join us and have a jolly time. The
negro child and the white child knew not the great chasm between their
lives, only that they had dainties and we had crusts.

My sister, being the children's nurse, would take them and wash their
hands and put them to bed in their luxurious bedrooms, while we little
slaves would find what homes we could. My brother and I would go to
sleep on some lumber under the house, where our sister Caroline would
find us and put us to bed. She would wipe our hands and faces and make
up our beds on the floor in Massa's house, for we had lived with him
ever since our own mother had run away, after being whipped by her
mistress. Later on, after the war, my mother returned and claimed us.
I never knew my father, who was a white man.

During these changing times, just after the war, I was trying to find
out what the change would bring about for us, as we were under the
care of our mistress, living in the great house. I thought this: that
Henry, Caroline and myself, Louise, would have to go as others had
done, and where should we go and what should we do? But as time went
on there were many changes. Our mistress and her two daughters, Martha
and Mary, had to become their own servants, and do all the work of the
house, going into the kitchen, cooking and washing, and feeling very
angry that all their house servants had run away to the Yankees. The
time had come when our good times were over, our many leisure hours
spent among the cotton fields and woods and our half-holiday on
Saturday. These were all gone. The boys had to leave school and take
the runaway slaves' places to finish the planting and pick the cotton.
I myself have worked in the cotton field, picking great baskets full,
too heavy for me to carry. All was over! I now fully understood the
change in our circumstances. Little Henry and I had no more time to
sit basking ourselves in the sunshine of the sunny south. The land was
empty and the servants all gone. I can see my dainty mistress coming
down the steps saying, "Rit, you and Henry will have to go and pic