My father was sold from my
mother when I was about two years old and he was carried to Texas and I
did not see him any more until I was 35 years old. So my mother married
again when she was set free. I didn't stay with my mother very much. She
stayed off in a little log house with a dirt floor, and she cooked on
the fireplace with a skillet and lid, and the house had one window with
a shutter. She had to cut logs and roll them like a man and split rails
and plow. I would sometimes ask old mistress to let me go out where my
mother was working to see her plow and when I got to be a big girl about
nine years she began learning me how to plow.
"I often told the niggers the white folks raised me. The niggers tell
me, 'Yes, the white folks raise you but the niggers is going to kill
you.'
"After freedom my mistress and master moved to Louisiana. They farmed.
They owned a big plantation. I did the housework.
"The biggest snow I remember was the big centennial snow. Oh, that's
been years ago. The snow was so deep you couldn't get out of the house.
The boys had to take the shovel and the hoe and keep the snow raked away
from around the door.
"There was a big old oak tree that stood in the corner of the yard.
People say that tree was a hundred years old. We could not get no wood,
so master had the boys to cut the big old oak tree for wood.
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