It
is a good education; it would help him to be a preacher. Mr. Rice tell
my father he can own his own home by law. So he make out the papers and
take care of everything so some persons can't take it away. All that
time my family was working for Mr. Rice and finally got the home paid
for, all but the last payment, and Mr. Rice said Jimmie's services was
worth that. So we had a nice home all paid for at last. We lived there
till father died in 1879, and about ten years more. Then sold it.
My father had more money than many ex-slaves because he did what the
Union soldiers told him. They used to give him "greenbacks" money and
tell him to take good care of it. You see, miss, Union money was not any
good here. Everything was Confederate money. You couldn't pay for a
dime's worth even with a five dollar bill of Union money then. The
soldiers just keep on telling my father to take all the greenbacks he
could get and hide away. There wasn't any need to hide it, nobody wanted
it. Soldiers said just wait; someday the Confederate money wouldn't be
any good and greenbacks would be all the money we had. So that's how my
father got his money.
If you have time to listen, miss, I'd like to tell you about a wonderful
thing a young doctor done for my folks. It was when the gun powder
explosion wrecked my brother and sister.
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