“No!  No!  Oh!  No!  You had better not dare let white people know that you could read, in those days.  I remember one colored man, Alfred Evans, who used to read the Bible during slavery time.  All the learning I have, I got after we were made free.  There were two colored churches in Athens; one was Baptist and the other was Methodist.  Yankee ladies came down from the North and taught us to read and write.  I have often considered writing the history of my life and finally decided to undertake it, but I found that it was more of a job than I had expected it to be, and then too, I would have to tell too much, so I thought best to leave it alone.

“I went to church but very little during slavery time.  However, I dearly loved to go to Sunday school, and never missed an opportunity of attending.  One of our Sunday school songs was worded something like this: 

  ’I want to be an angel,
   And with the angels stand.’

“My favorite song began: 

  ’Around the Throne in Heaven,
   Ten Thousand children stand.’

“OO!  Yes, I know how they buried folks in slavery time.  For caskets they used straight, white pine boxes that they called coffins.  They didn’t have funerals like they do now.  A preacher would say a few words at the grave and then he prayed, and after that everybody sang something like:  ‘I will arise and go to Jesus.’  I was a singer in my younger days.

“All I remember ’bout Negroes going off to the North was when their masters took them along on trips to wait on them.  Bless your life!  That was one time when the ones that could read and write had the advantage.  They were usually chosen to go along so if anything happened to the Marster on the trip, they could write back home.  I never saw patrollers, but I heard that they used to beat up Negroes who were caught away from home without a pass.  Marse John kept his slaves supplied with passes at all necessary times.

“Not all the slaves had to work on Saturday afternoons.  This was their time of the week to get together and have a little fun around their quarters.  Sunday mornings they went to church, as a rule, and on Sunday nights they visited each other and held prayer meetings in their homes.  Don’t get me wrong.  They had to have passes to go visiting and attend those prayer meetings.

“Christmas time was a holiday season for slaves, and they had everything good you could want to eat.  Listen, Child, I am telling you the truth.  They even had pumpkin pie.  Oh, yes!  Santa Claus came to see slave children.  Once I got too smart for my own good.  Miss Fannie and Miss Ann had told us to go to bed early.  They said if we weren’t asleep when Santa Claus got there, he would go away and never come back.  Well, that night I made up my mind to stay awake and see Santa Claus.  Miss Fannie and Miss Ann slipped into our quarters right easy and quiet and were filling up stockings with candy, dolls, and everything you can imagine.  While they were doing that, they turned around and saw me with my eyes wide open.  Right there my Santa Claus ended.  We didn’t have any special observance of New Year’s Day.  It was the same as any other day.