s you might think dat we ain't had no good times, but we had
our co'n shuckin's, candy pullin's an' sich like. We ain't felt like
huntin' much, but I did go on a few fox hunts wid de master. I uster go
fishin' too, but I ain't been now since 1873, I reckon. We sometimes
went ter de neighborhood affairs if'n we wuz good, but if we wuzn't an'
didn't git a pass de patter-rollers would shore git us. When dey got
through whuppin' a nigger he knowed he wuz whupped too.

De slave weddin's in dat country wuz sorta dis way: de man axed de
master fer de 'oman an' he jist told dem ter step over de broom an' dat
wuz de way dey got married dem days; de pore white folks done de same
way.

Atter de war started de white folks tried ter keep us niggers frum
knowin' 'bout it, but de news got aroun' somehow, an' dar wuz some talk
of gittin' shet of de master's family an' gittin' rich. De plans didn't
'mout to nothin' an' so de Yankees come down.

I 'members moughty well when de Yankees come through our country. Dey
stold ever'thing dey could find an' I 'members what ole master said. He
says, 'Ever' one dat wants ter wuck fer me git in de patch ter pullin'
dat forty acres of fodder an' all dat don't git up de road wid dem d----
Yankees.' Well we all went away.

Dat winter wuz tough, all de niggers near 'bout starved ter death, an'
we ain't seed nothin' of de forty acres of land an' de mule what de
Yankees done promise us nother. Atter awhile we had ter go ter our ole
masters an' ax 'em fer bread ter keep us alive.

De Klu Klux Klan sprung right up out of de earth, but de Yankees put a
stop ter dat by puttin' so many of dem in jail. Dey do say dat dat's
what de State Prison wus built fer.

I never believed in witches an' I ain't put much stock in hain'ts but
I'se seed a few things durin' my life dat I can't 'splain, like de thing
wid de red eyes dat mocked me one night; but shucks I ain't believin' in
dem things much. I'se plowed my lan', tended it year atter year, lived
by myself an' all, an' I ain't got hurted yet, but I ain't never rid in
a automobile yet, an' I got one tooth left.

B. N.

N. C. District: No. 2 [320159]
Worker: T. Pat Matthews
No. Words: 1453
Subject: HANNAH CRASSON
Story Teller: Hannah Crasson
Editor: Daisy Bailey Waitt

[TR: HW notes at bottom of page illegible]

HANNAH CRASSON

My name is Hannah Crasson. I wuz born on John William Walton's
planta