Then I quit looking and
started hollering. But, I'll tell you all about that later.

My folks all come from Maryland. They was sold to a man named Woodfork
and brought to Nashville. The Woodfork colored folks was always
treated good. Master used to buy up lots of plantations. Once he
bought one in Virginia with all the slaves on the place. He didn't
believe in separating families. He didn't believe in dividing mother
from her baby.

But they did take them away from their babies. I remember my
grandmother telling about it. The wagon would drive down into the
field and pick up a woman. Then somebody would meet her at the gate
and she would nurse her baby for the last time. Then she'd have to go
on. Leastwise, if they hadn't sold her baby too.

It was pretty awful. But I don't hold no grudge against anybody. White
or black, there's good folks in all kinds. I don't hold nothing
against nobody. The good Lord knows what he is about. Most of the time
it was just fine on any Woodfork place. Master had so many places he
couldn't be at 'em all. We lived down on the border, on the
Arkansas-Louisiana line sort of joining to Grand Lake. Master was up
at Nashville, Tennessee. Most of the time the overseers was good to
us.

But it wasn't that way on all the plantations. On the next one they
was mean. Why you could hear the sound of the strap for two blocks. No
there wasn't any blocks. But you could hear it that far. The "niggah
drivah" would stand and hit them with a wide strap. The overseer would
stand off and split the blisters with a bull whip. Some they whipped
so hard they had to carry them in. Just once did anybody on the
Woodfork place get whipped that way.

We never knew quite what happened. But my grandmother thought that the
colored man what took down the ages of the children so they'd know
when to send them to the field must have wrote Master. Anybody else
couldn't have done it. Anyhow, Master wrote back a letter and said, 'I
bought my black folks to work, not to be killed.' And the overseer
didn't dare do so any more.

No ma'am, I never worked in the field. I wasn't old enough. You see I
helped my grandmother, she is the one who took care of the babies. All
the women from the lower end would bring their babies to the upper end
for her to look after while they was in the field. When I got old
enough, I used to help rock the cradles. We used to have lots of
babies to tend. The women used to slip in and nurse their ba