in a corner and poles around and shucks and straw. We'd sleep
warm all night long, but it wouldn't do in this country in summertime.

"Massa give us plenty to eat. Our cornbread was what you calls water
pone bread and cooked in the ashes. We didn't have no stove. Massa was a
great hunter and allus had venison and game. They was plenty fish, too.

"Massa Cain was purty good to his slaves and mean to them if they didn't
behave. Missy was a good woman. They lived in a two-story rock house
with plenty trees all 'round.

"We worked long as we could see, from four o'clock in the mornin', and
them milked twenty cows and fed the work stock. They was fifty acres and
not 'nough niggers to work it easy.

"If some niggers was mean they'd git it. Massa tied they hands to they
feet and tied them to a tree and hit 'bout twenty-five or fifty licks
with a rawhide belt. Hide and blood flew then. Next mornin' he'd turn
them loose and they'd have to work all day without nothin' to eat. He
had a cabin called jail for the nigger women, and chain them in with
cornbread and one glass of water.

"One nigger run to the woods to be a jungle nigger, but massa cotched
him with the dogs and took a hot iron and brands him. Then he put a bell
on him, in a wooden frame what slip over the shoulders and under the
arms. He made that nigger wear the bell a year and took it off on
Christmas for a present to him. It sho' did make a good nigger out of
him.

"In the summer time they had camp meetin' and baptized in the creek,
white folks first while the old nigger mammies shouts, and then the
niggers.

"On Saturday mornin' us men grated corn for bread the next week and the
women washed massa's clothes and our'n. On Saturday night we'd have a
dance all night long, and Sunday the men went to see they wives or
sweethearts and us young'uns went swimmin' in the creek. Every night but
Saturday we had to go to bed at nine o'clock. Massa hit the big steel
piece and we knowed it was time to put out the torches and pile in.

"On Christmas I'd stand by the gate, to open it for the company, and
they'd throw nuts and candy to me. That night all the slaves what could
brung they banjoes and fiddles and played for the white folks to dance
all night. Them great old days are done gone. Most the men be full that
good, old eggnog.

"After war come they ain't no more dances and fun, and not much to eat
or nothin'. Massa git kilt in a big battle and missy took four slaves