The live stock that
they sold represented a like sum. Mr. Favors and his mother remained
with the "Widow," who gave him his board in return for his services and
paid his mother twenty-five dollars per year for hers as cook.

"Even after the war things were pretty tough for us" stated Mr. Favors.
"The plantation owners refused to pay more than thirty or forty cents to
a person for a days work in the fields. Some of them would not allow an
ex-slave to walk in the streets in front of their homes but made them
take to the out-of-the-way paths through the woods to reach their
various destinations. At other times white men cut the clothes from the
backs of the ex-slaves when they were well dressed. If they didn't beg
hard enough when thus accosted they might even be cut to death!" After
the first three years following the war conditions were somewhat better,
he continued.

Mr. Favors says that his old age is due to the fact that he has always
taken good care of himself and because he has always refrained from
those habits that are known to tear a person's health down.

[HW: Dist. 6
Ex-Slave #28]

THE STORY OF AUNT MARY FERGUSON, EX-SLAVE
1928 Oak Street
Columbus, Georgia
December 18, 1936

"Aunt" Mary Ferguson, nee Mary Little, nee Mary Shorter, was born
somewhere in Maryland; the exact locality being designated by her simply
as "the eastern shore" of that state. She was born the chattel of a
planter named Shorter, so her first name, of course, was Mary Shorter.

For many years she has resided with a daughter and a granddaughter, at
1928 Oak Avenue, Columbus, Georgia.

"Aunt" Mary was about thirteen years old when, in 1860, she was sold and
brought South. The story of which, as told in her own words is as
follows:

"In 1860 I wuz a happy chile. I had a good ma an a good paw; one older
bruther an one older suster, an a little bruther an a baby suster, too.
All my fambly wucked in de fields, 'ceptin me an de two little uns,
which I stayed at home to mind. (mind--care for).

"It wuz durin' cotton chopping time dat year (1860), a day I'll never
fergit, when de speckulataws bought me. We come home from the fiel'
'bout haf atter 'leven dat day an cooked a good dinner, I hopin her. O,
I never has forgot dat last dinner wid my fokes! But, some-ow, I had
felt, all de mawnin, lak sumpin was gwineter hapin'. I could jes feel it
in my bones! An' sho nough, bout de middle of the even', up rid my young
Marster on his