ess
you bought his wife and three chillun wid him.

"Never had any money; didn't know what it was. Mammy was a house woman,
and I got just what de white chillun got to eat, only a little bit
later, in de kitchen. Dere was fifty or sixty other little niggers on de
place. Want to know how they was fed? Well, it was lak dis: You've seen
pig troughs, side by side, in a big lot? After all de grown niggers eat
and git out de way, scraps and everything eatable was put in them
troughs; sometimes buttermilk poured on de mess and sometimes potlicker.
Then de cook blowed a cow horn. Quick as lightnin' a passle of fifty or
sixty little niggers run out de plum bushes, from under de sheds and
houses, and from everywhere. Each one take his place, and souse his
hands in de mixture and eat just lak you see pigs shovin' 'round slop
troughs. I see dat sight many times in my dreams, old as I is,
eighty-two years last Saturday.

"'Twas not 'til de year of '66 dat we got 'liable info'mation and felt
free to go where us pleased to go. Most of de niggers left but mammy
stayed on and cooked for Dr. Sam and de white folks.

"Bad white folks comed and got bad niggers started. Soon things got
wrong and de devil took a hand in de mess. Out of it come to de top, de
carpetbag, de scalawags and then de Ku Klux. Night rider come by and
drap something at your door and say: 'I'll just leave you something for
dinner'. Then ride off in a gallop. When you open de sack, what you
reckon in dere? Liable to be one thing, liable to be another. One time
it was six nigger heads dat was left at de door. Was it at my house
door? Oh, no! It was at de door of a nigger too active in politics. Old
Congressman Wallace sent Yankee troops, three miles long, down here. Lot
of white folks was put in jail.

"I married Emma Greer in 1879; she been dead two years. Us lived husband
and wife 56 years, bless God. Us raised ten chillun; all is doin' well.
One is in Winnsboro, one in Chester, one in Rock Hill, one in Charlotte,
one in Chesterfield, one in New York and two wid me on de farm near
White Oak, which I own. I has 28 grandchillun. All us Presbyterians. Can
read but can't write. Our slaves was told if ever they learned to write
they'd lose de hand or arm they wrote wid.

"What 'bout whuppin's? Plenty of it. De biggest whuppin' I ever heard
tell of was when they had a trial of several slave men for sellin'
liquor at da spring, durin' preachin', on Sunday. De trial come