charge. My name was Ulyses Grant Edwards, but my
grandmother, who had been with white people since emancipation, changed
my name to William. I afterward added to this my grandfather's name of
James.

My father went away to work and I remained with my grandmother. We lived
about one mile from the "quarter,"--that is, the collection of slaves'
cabins. We had about three acres of ground cleared around our cabin and
my grandmother and I farmed. I do not know how old I was when I began
working, for I have been a farm hand ever since I could remember
anything. We usually made one bale of cotton each year and about
twenty-five or thirty bushels of corn. Sometimes my grandfather would do
our plowing and at other times,--as we had no stock,--my grandmother and
I worked out for others to get our plowing done.

In the summer time it was the custom for little Negro boys to wear only
one garment, a shirt. Sometimes, however, my grandmother would be unable
to get one for me and in that case she would take a crocus sack or corn
sack and put two holes in it for my arms and one for my head. In putting
on a sack shirt for the first time the sensation was extremely
irritating. It seemed as if a thousand pins were sticking me all at
once, but after a few days it would become all right and I could wear it
comfortably. For several summers this was my only garment.

Sometimes we would raise a pig during the summer to kill in the winter
and sometimes we had a cow to milk. At such times we had plenty to eat,
but at other times we had neither a pig nor a cow and then we had hard
times in the way of getting something to eat. Some days our only diet
was corn-bread and corn coffee.

When I was old enough, I was sent to school for two or three months each
winter. Here again I had a hard time, as we usually carried our dinner
in a little tin bucket. Sometimes I had nothing but bread and when
recess came for dinner, I went away by myself and ate my bread and drank
water. As long as I could keep out of the way of the other children, no
one was the wiser and I did not mind it, but some of the children began
to watch me and in that way found that I had nothing but bread, and when
they told the others, they would laugh and make fun of me. This would
make me feel badly and sometimes I cried, but I did not stop school for
this. My one desire was to learn to read the Bible for my old
grandmother, who like my mother, was very religious. At last I was able