reaching soon as I joined the church. I began at the
prayer-meetings. I preached for forty-seven years before I fell. I've
had two strokes. It's been twenty-eight years or more since I was able
to work for myself.

"I have heard about the pateroles but I never did know much about
them. I have heard my father talk about them. He never would get a new
suit and go to town but what they would catch him out and say, 'You
got a pass?' He would show it to them, and they would sit down and
chew old nasty tobacco and spit the juice out on him all over his
clothes.

"The Ku Klux never did bother us any. Not after I got the knowledge to
know what was what. They was scared to bother people 'cause the
niggers had gone and got them some guns and would do them up.

"Old Jim McClain had one son who was bad. He used to jump on the
niggers an' 'buse and beat them up. The niggers got tired of it and he
started gittin' beat up every time he started anything and they didn't
have no more trouble.

"Jim McClain didn't mistreat his niggers. The boys did after he was
dead though. He died way after slavery. If a nigger went off his place
and stole a cow or a hog or something, you better not come 'round
there and try to do nothin' about it. Jim McClain would be right there
to protect him.

"When he died, the horses could hardly pull him up the hill. He wanted
to stay back down there in the bottoms where that cotton was.

"When I got to realizing, it was after freedom. But they had slavery
rules then. There was one old woman who used to take care of the
children while their parents were working in the fields. Sometimes it
would be a week before I would see my mother and father. Children
didn't set up then and look in old folks' faces like they do now. They
would go to bed early. Wake up sometimes way in the middle of the
night. Old folks would be holding a meeting and singing and praying.

"They used to feed the children pot-liquor and bread and milk.
Sometimes a child would find a piece of meat big as your two fingers
and he would holler out, 'Oh look, I got some meat.'

"Fourth of July come, everybody would lay by. Niggers all be gathered
together dancing and the white folks standin' 'round lookin' at them.

"Right after the surrender, I went to night school a little, but most
of my schooling was got by the plow. After I come to be a minister I
got a little schooling.

"I can't get about now. I have had two strokes and the doctor say