old feller! In
de end, I took care of him and had to work like I was young again. I cut
wood and carried water and washed and cooked. I had to feed him.

"I owns my place here. It am twelve acres and pappy bought it long ago
for $25.00 de acre. My sister lives here too, and my son, Howard, comes
home sometimes, but he's got eight houn' dogs he can't feed. I sho'
can't feed dem on dat $11.00 pension what I gits.

420080

[Illustration: Ellen Butler]

ELLEN BUTLER was born a slave to Richmond Butler, near Whiska
Chitto, in the northern part of Calcasieu Parish (now a part of
Beauregard Parish), in Louisiana. Ellen is about 78 years old. She
now lives in Beaumont, Texas.

"My old massa was name Richmond Butler and he used to have a big
plantation over on Whiska Chitto, in Louisiana, and that's where I was
born. They used to call the place Bagdad. I was his slave till I six
year old and then freedom come.

"I don't 'member my daddy, but my mammy was name Dicey Ann Butler. I
have seven sister and three brudder, and they was Anderson and Charlie
and Willie, and the girls was Laura and Rosa and Rachel and Fannie and
Adeline and Sottie and Nora.

"Us used to live in a li'l log house with one room. The floor was dirt
and the house was make jus' like they used to make 'tater house. They
was a little window in the back. When I was a baby they wrop me up in
cotton and put me in a coffee pot--that how li'l I was. But I grows to
be more sizable.

"The plantation were a good, big place and they have 'bout 200 head of
niggers. When I gets big enough they start me to totin' water to the
field. I gits the water out the spring and totes it in gourds. They cut
the gourds so that a strip was left round and cross the top and that the
handle. They was about a foot 'cross and a foot deep. Us used to have
one good gourd us kep' lard in and li'l gourds to drink out of.

"Massa never 'lowed us slaves go to church but they have big holes in
the fields they gits down in and prays. They done that way 'cause the
white folks didn't want them to pray. They used to pray for freedom.

"When the white folks go off they writes on the meal and flour with they
fingers. That the way they know if us steal meal. Sometime they take a
stick and write in front of the door so if anybody go out they step on
that writin' and the massa know. That the way us larn how to write.

"Old massa didn't give 'em much to eat. When th