lled after the War a 'Jim Crow.' It was a
hairbrush that had brass or steel teeth like pins 'ceptin' it was
blunt. It was that long, handle and all (about a foot long). They'd
wash me and grease my legs with lard, keep them from looking ashy and
rusty. Then they'd come after me with them old brushes and brush my
hair. It mortally took skin, hair, and all.

"The first shoe I ever wore had a brass toe. I danced all time when I
was a child. We wore cotton dresses so strong. They would hang you if
you got caught on 'em. We had one best dress.

"One time I went along wid a colored girl to preaching. Her fellar
walked home wid 'er. I was coming 'long behind. He helped her over the
rail fence. I wouldn't let him help me. I was sorter bashful. He
looked back and I was dangling. I got caught when I jumped. They got
me loose. My homespun dress didn't tear.

"I liked my papa the best. He was kind and never whooped us. He belong
to Master Stamps on another place. He was seventy-five years old when
he died.

"I milked a drove of cows. They raised us on milk and they had a
garden. I never et much meat. I went to school and they said meat
would make you thick-headed so you couldn't learn.

"I think papa was in the War. We cut sorghum cane with his sword what
he fit wid.

"Stamps was a teacher. He started a college before the War. It was a
big white house and a boarding house for the scholars. He had a
scholar they called Cooperwood. He rode. He would run us children.
Mama went to Master Stamps and he stopped that. He was the teacher. I
think that was toreckly after the War. Then we lived in the boarding
house. Four or five families lived in that big old house. It had
fifteen rooms. That was close to Marshall, Mississippi.

"Me and the Norfleet children drove the old mule gin together. There
was Mary, Nell, Grace. Miss Cora was the oldest. Miss Cora Marshall
married the old bachelor I told you about. She didn't play much.

"When the first yellow fever broke out, Master George Stamps sent papa
to Colliersville from Germantown. The officers stayed there. While he
was waiting for meat he would stay in the bottoms. He'd bring meat
back. Master George had a great big heavy key to the smokehouse. He'd
cut meat and give it out to his Negroes. That meat was smuggled from
Memphis. He'd go in a two-horse wagon. I clem up and look through the
log cracks at him cutting up the meat fer the hands on his place.

"I had the rheumatism but I