“She would go in the woods.  I don’t know where she’d go after she’d get in the woods.  She would go in the woods and hide somewheres.  She’d take somethin’ to eat with her.  I couldn’t find her myself.  She take somethin’ to eat with her.  She didn’t know what flour bread was.  I don’t remember what she’d take—­somethin’ she could carry.  Sometimes she would stay in the woods two months, sometimes three months.  They’d pay for the nigger hounds and let them chase her back.  She’d try to get away.  She never took me with her when she ran away.

Buying and Selling

“My mother and her sister were bought in old Virginny.  Ben Watkins was the one that bought her.  He bought my father too.  Then he sold my father to the Leightons.  Leighton bought my father from Ben Watkins for a carriage driver.  I was never bought nor sold.  I was born on Ben Watkins’ plantation and freed on it.

Patrollers

“I’ve heered them say the pateroles is out.  I don’t know who they was.  I know they’d whip you.  I was a child then.  I would just know what I was told mostly.

How Freedom Came

“The Yankees told my mother she was free.  They had on blue clothes.  They said them was the Yankees.  I don’t know what they told her.  I know they said she was free.  That’s all I know.

“Sometimes the soldiers would do right smart damage.  They set a lot of houses on fire.  They done right smart damage.

Jeff Davis

“I have seen Jeff Davis.  I never seen Lincoln.  They said it was Jeff Davis I seen.  I seen him in Vicksburg.  That was after the war was over.

Ku Klux Klan

“I have heered about the Ku Klux, but I don’t know what it was I heered.  They never bothered me.

Right after the War

“Right after the war, my mother and father hired out to work.  They did most any kind of work—­whatever they could get to do.  Mother cooked.  Father would generally do house cleaning.  Mother didn’t live long after the war.

Blood Poisoning

“I lost my finger because of blood poisoning.  I had a scratch on my finger.  Pulled a hangnail out of it.  I went around a lady who had a high fever and she asked me to sponge her off and I did it.  I got the finger in the water that I sponged with and it got blood poisoned.  I like to have died.

Father’s Death

“I was married and had three children when my father died.  I don’t know what he died with nor what year.

“My mother had had seven children—­all girls.  I had seven children.  But three of mine were boys and four were girls.  Ain’t none of them living now.