in Rich Square. One day we went out to pick huckleberries. A woman came
riding down the road on a horse. She was a tall woman in a long grey
riding habit. She had grey hair and grey eyes. She stopped and looked
at us. 'My,' she said, 'whose pretty little girls are you?'

"'We're Squire Walden's children,' I said.

"She looked at me so long and hard that I thought she was going to hit
me with her whip, but she didn't, she hit the horse. He jumped and ran
so fast I thought she was going to fall off, but she went around the
curve and I never saw her again. I never knew until later that she was
Mis' Charlottie James, my grandmother.

"I don't know anything about slavery times, for I was born free of free
parents and raised on my father's own plantation. I've been living in
Durham over sixty-five years."

N.C. District: No. 2
Worker: T. Pat Matthews
No. Words: 680
Subject: A SLAVERY STORY
Story teller: MAGGIE MIALS
Editor: George L. Andrews

[TR: Date stamp: SEP 10 1937]

MAGGIE MIALS
73 years old, of 202 Maple Street, Raleigh, North Carolina.

"I'll never forgit de day when de Yankees come through Johnston County.

"I belonged to Tom Demaye an' ole missus in slavery time wus named
Liza.

"De Demayes lived in Raleigh when I wus born, so mother tole me, but
dey moved to a place near Smithfield. He had 'bout a dozen slaves. We
had little cabins to live in, but marster had a big house to live in
that set in a grove. De food I got wus good because I was a pet in de
family. My mother was a cook an' a pet. My marster wus good to all of
us an' I fared better den dan I do now. Ole marster thought de world of
me and I loved him. Marster allowed his slaves to visit, have prayer
meetings, hunt, fish, an' sing and have a good time when de work wus
done. Some of de slave owners did not like marster cause he wus so good
to his slaves. They called us 'Ole Man Demayes damn free niggers.' I
don't know my age zackly but I was a big gal, big enough to drag a
youngin roun' when de Yankees come through. I wus six years old if no
older.

"When de Yankees come dey called us to de wagons an' tole us we wus
free. Dey give each of us a cap full of hard-tack. Dey took clothes an'
provisions an' give us nothin'. One crowd of Yankees would come on an'
give us something an' another would come along an' take it away from
us. Dey tole us to call marster an' missus Johnny Rebs, that we wus