“They didn’t mind the slaves matin’, but they wanted their niggers to marry only amongst them on their place.  They didn’t ’low ’em to mate with other slaves frum other places.  When the wimmen had babies they wuz treated kind and they let ’em stay in.  We called it ‘lay-in’, just about lak they do now.  We didn’t go to no horspitals as they do now, we jest had our babies and had a granny to catch ’em.  We didn’t have all the pain-easin’ medicines then.  The granny would put a rusty piece of tin or a ax under the mattress and this would ease the pains.  The granny put a ax under my mattress once.  This wuz to cut off the after-pains and it sho did too, honey.  We’d set up the fifth day and after the ‘layin-in’ time wuz up we wuz ’lowed to walk out doors and they tole us to walk around the house jest once and come in the house.  This wuz to keep us frum takin’ a ’lapse.

“We wuzn’t ’lowed to go around and have pleasure as the folks does today.  We had to have passes to go wherever we wanted.  When we’d git out there wuz a bunch of white men called the ‘patty rollers’.  They’d come in and see if all us had passes and if they found any who didn’t have a pass he wuz whipped; give fifty or more lashes—­and they’d count them lashes.  If they said a hundred you got a hundred.  They wuz somethin’ lak the Klu Klux.  We wuz ’fraid to tell our masters about the patty rollers because we wuz skeered they’d whip us again, fur we wuz tole not to tell.  They’d sing a little ditty.  Ah wish Ah could remember the words, but it went somethin’ lak this: 

  ’Run, Niggah, run, de Patty Rollers’ll git you,
   Run Niggah, ran, you’d bettah git away.’

“We wuz ’fraid to go any place.

“Slaves ware treated in most cases lak cattle.  A man went about the country buyin’ up slaves lak buyin’ up cattle and the like, and he wuz called a ‘speculator’, then he’d sell ’em to the highest bidder.  Oh! it wuz pitiful to see chil’en taken frum their mothers’ breast, mothers sold, husbands sold frum wives.  One ’oman he wuz to buy had a baby, and of course the baby come befo’ he bought her and he wouldn’t buy the baby; said he hadn’t bargained to buy the baby too, and he jest wouldn’t.  My uncle wuz married but he wuz owned by one master and his wife wuz owned by another.  He wuz ’lowed to visit his wife on Wednesday and Saturday, that’s the onliest time he could git off.  He went on Wednesday and when he went back on Saturday his wife had been bought by the speculator and he never did know where she wuz.

“Ah worked hard always.  Honey, you can’t ’magine what a hard time Ah had.  Ah split rails lak a man.  How did Ah do it?  Ah used a huge glut, and a iron wedge drove into the wood with a maul, and this would split the wood.

“Ah help spin the cotton into thread fur our clothes.  The thread wuz made into big broaches—­four broaches made four cuts, or one hank.  After the thread wuz made we used a loom to weave the cloth.  We had no sewin’ machine—­had to sew by hand.  My mistress had a big silver bird and she would always catch the cloth in the bird’s bill and this would hold it fur her to sew.