don't remember anything about my grandparents. My folks were sold
around and I couldn't keep track of them.

"The first work I did out from home was with my mistress's brother, Dr.
Jim Taylor, in Kentucky, taking care of his children. I was an awful
tiny little somethin' about eight or nine years old. I used to turn the
reel for the old folks who was spinning. That's all I've ever
known--work.

"I never got a penny. My master kept me and my sister Mary twenty-two
long years after we were supposed to be free. Work, work, work. I don't
think my sister and I ever went to bed before twelve o'clock at night.
We never got a penny. They could have spared it, too; they had enough.

"We ate corn bread and fat meat. Meat and bread, we kids called it. We
all had a pint tin cup of buttermilk. No slaves had their own gardens.

"The men just wore jeans. The slaves all made their own clothes. They
just wove all the time; the old women wove all the time. I wasn't old
enough to go in the field like the oldest children. The oldest
children--they _worked_. After slavery ended, my sister Mary and me
worked as ex-slaves, and we _worked_. Most of the slaves had shoes, but
us kids used to run around barefoot most of the time.

"My folks, my master and mistress, lived in a great, white, frame house,
just the same as a hotel. I grew up with the youngest child, Mayo. The
other white children grew up and worked as overseers. Mayo always wanted
me to call him 'Master Mayo'. I fought him all the time. I never would
call him 'Master Mayo'. My mistress wouldn't let anyone harm me and she
made Mayo behave.

"My master wouldn't let the poor white neighbors--no one--tell us we was
free. The plantation was many, many acres, hundreds and hundreds of
acres, honey. There were about twenty-five or thirty families of slaves.
They got up and stood until daylight, waiting to plow. Yes, child, they
was up _early_. Our folks don't know how we had to work. I don't like to
tell you how we were treated--how we had to _work_. It's best to brush
those things out of our memory.

"If you wanted to go to another plantation, you had to have a pass. If
my folks was going to somebody's house, they'd have to have a pass.
Otherwise they'd be whipped. They'd take a big man and tie his hands
behind a tree, just like that big tree outside, and whip him with a
rawhide and draw blood every whip. I know I was scared every time I'd
hear the slave say, 'Pray, Master.'

"Onc