feeds de hawgs and chickens night and mornin'. I can't see dem, but I
likes to listen to dem eatin' and cackle. People don't know how dey's
blessed with good eyes, till dey loses dem. Everybody ought to be more
thankful dan they is.

"I ain't never voted in my life. I leans to de 'publicans. I don't know
much 'bout politics, though.

"Today I is broke, 'cause I spent all my money for med'cine and doctors,
but I gits a small pension and I spends it mos' careful.

420270

ELI COLEMAN, 91, was born a slave of George Brady, in Kentucky.
Eli's memory is poor and his story is somewhat sketchy. He now
lives in Madisonville, Texas.

"I has a old bill of sale, and it shows I's born in 1846 and my massa am
George Brady. I know my pappy's name was same as mine, and mammy was
Ella, and I had one brother named Sam, and my sisters was Sadie and Rosa
and Viola. They's all dead now.

"Pappy was owned by Massa Coleman, what was brother to Massa Brady.
Pappy could only see mammy once a week when he's courtin' for her. I
heard pappy tell 'bout his pappy, over in Africy, and he had near a
hundred wives and over three hundred chillen.

"Pappy never did work. All he ever did was trade. He'd make one thing
and 'nother and trade it for something to eat. He could get lots of
fruit and game out of the woods them days, and there was lots of fish.

"Our log house was built of logs, trimmed, and had six rooms. It was
long, like a cowbarn or chicken house, and my room was third. We had one
door to each room, covered over with hides. We dug out one corner for
the bed and fenced it up and gathered straw and moss and tore-up corn
shucks, and put in the corner to sleep on. What I mean, it was a warm
bed.

"We did all kinds of work, choppin' cotton and split rails and cut rock,
and work in the tobacco field. We'd cut that tobacco and hang it in the
shed to dry. It had to be hanged by the stubble end.

"We had plenty to eat, sech as corn pones. The corn was grated by hand
and cooked in ashes, and no salt or soda or fancy things like they put
in bread now.

"There was possum and rabbit and we cooked them different to now. A
great big, old pot hung over the old rock fireplace. Food cooked that
way still eats good. Massa Brady allus give us lots out of the garden.
He fed us reg'lar on good, 'stantial food, jus' like you'd tend to you
hoss, if you had a real good one.

"Massa Brady, he was one these jolly fellows and a