One
of them was in a delicate state, and they dug a hole and put her stomach
down in it and whipped her till she could hardly walk.
"Holbert lived to see the niggers freed. All of his slaves left him
pretty well when freedom come. He managed to hold on to his money. He
didn't go to the War. He was pretty old. He had two sons in the War--his
wife had one in there and he had one. One of them got wounded but he
didn't die.
"My mistress's oldest son, Ed Sterling, got shot in the Civil War. He
got shot right in the side at Franklin, Tennessee. It tore his whole
side off--near about killed him. But he lived to ride paterole. He was
mean. Catch a man in bed with his wife at night, he'd whip him and make
him go home. He was the meanest man in the world. All the other sons
were better than he was. His name was Ed Sterling.
"The first thing I remember was work. You weren't allowed to remember
nothing but work in slave times and you got whipped about that. You
weren't allowed to go nowhere but carry the mules out to the pasture to
eat grass. Sometimes they jump the fence and go over in the field and
eat corn. Me and another fellow named Sandy used to watch them all day
Sunday. Watching the mules and working in the fields through the week
was the first work I remember. Me and my sister worked on one row.
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