nigger families but she darsn't let missy
know 'bout it.

"When a slave die, massa make the coffin hisself and send a couple
niggers to bury the body and say, 'Don't be long,' and no singin' or
prayin' 'lowed, jus' put them in the ground and cover 'em up and hurry
on back to that field.

"Niggers didn't cou't then like they do now, massa pick out a po'tly man
and a po'tly gal and jist put 'em together. What he want am the stock.

"I 'member that fight at Mansfield like it yes'day. Massas's field am
all tore up with cannon holes and ever' time a cannon fire, missy go off
in a rage. One time when a cannon fire, she say to me, 'You li'l black
wench, you niggers ain't gwine be free. You's made to work for white
folks.' 'Bout that time she look up and see a Yankee sojer standin' in
the door with a pistol. She say, 'Katie, I didn't say anythin', did I?'
I say, 'I ain't tellin' no lie, you say niggers ain't gwine git free.'

"That day you couldn't git 'round the place for the Yankees and they
stays for weeks at a time.

"When massa come home from the war he wants let us loose, but missy
wouldn't do it. I stays on and works for them six years after the war
and missy whip me after the war jist like she did 'fore. She has a
hun'erd lashes laid up for me now, and this how it am. My brudders done
lef' massa after the war and move nex' door to the Ware place, and one
Saturday some niggers come and tell me my brudder Peter am comin' to git
me 'way from old missy Sunday night. That night the cows and calves got
together and missy say it my fault. She say, 'I'm gwine give you one
hun'erd lashes in the mornin', now go pen them calves.'

"I don't know whether them calves was ever penned or not, 'cause Peter
was waitin' for me at the lot and takes me to live with him on the Ware
place. I's so happy to git away from that old devil missy, I don't know
what to do, and I stays there sev'ral years and works out here and there
for money. Then I marries and moves here and me and my man farms and
nothin' 'citin' done happened."

420046

[Illustration: Carey Davenport]

CAREY DAVENPORT, retired Methodist minister of Anahuac, Texas,
appears sturdy despite his 83 years. He was reared a slave of Capt.
John Mann, in Walker Co., Texas. His wife, who has been his devoted
companion for 60 years, was born in slavery just before
emancipation. Carey is very fond of fishing and spends much time
with hook an