dance. We sparks 'bout two
months and den we's married at her uncles. Her name am Nancy. We buys a
piece of land and I has a two-room house built on it. We has two chillen
and I's livin' with de baby gal now.

"I 'lieve de slaves I knowed as a whole was happier and better off after
'mancipation dan befo'. Of course, de first few years it was awful hard
to git 'justed to de new life. All de slaves knowed how to do hard work,
and dat de old slaves life, but dey didn't know nothin' 'bout how to
'pend on demselves for de livin'. My first year was hard, but dere was
plenty wild game in dem days. De south was broke and I didn't hear of no
slaves gittin' anything but to crop on de halves. Dey too glad to be
free and didn't want nothin'.

"Things 'gin to git bad for me in Chattanooga as de white men finds out
I run off from de South and jined de North. Some de brakemen try to git
my job. I fin'ly quits when one of dem opens a switch I jus' closed. I
seed him and goes back and fixes de switch, but I quits de job. I goes
up north but dey ain't int'rested, so I comes back and sells my home and
buys me a team and wagon. I loads it with my wife and chillen and a few
things and starts for Texas. We's on de road 'bout six weeks or two
months. We fishes and hunts every day and de trip didn't cost much. I
buys ninety acres in timber in Cass County and cuts logs for a house and
builds a two-room house and log crib. My wife built a stomp lot for de
team and cow and a rail fence.

"We got 'nough land cleared for de small crop, 'bout thirty acres, and
builds de barn and sheds outselves. We lived there till de chillen am
growed. My wife died of chills and fever and den my boy and I built a
four-room house of planks from our timber. Den I gits lonesome, 'cause
de chillen gone, and sells de place. I bought it for fifty cents de acre
and sold it for $12.00 de acre.

"I buys sixty acres in Henderson County for $15.00 a acre and marries de
second time. I didn't care for her like Nancy. All she think 'bout am
raisin' de devil and never wants to work or save anything. She like to
have broke me down befo' I gits rid of her. I stayed and farmed sev'ral
years.

"My son-in-law rents land in Chambers Creek bottom, and he usually gits
he crop 'fore de flood gits it. We has some hawgs to kill ev'ry winter
and we has our cornmeal and milk and eggs and chickens, so de 'pression
ain't starved us yit. We all got might' nigh naked durin' de 'pression.
I