' Sure he's
blessed me. Don't I know that?
"I've seen 'em run away from slavery. There was a white man that lived
close to us who had just one slave and he couldn't keep him out the
woods to save his soul. The white man was named Jim Sales and the
colored boy was named--shucks, I can't remember his name. But I know Jim
Sales couldn't keep that nigger out the woods nohow.
"I was freed endurin' the Civil War. We was in at dinner and my old mars
had been to town. Old man Pleas Collier, our mean mars, called my daddy
out and then he said, 'All you come out here.' I said to myself, 'I
wonder what he's a goin' to do to my daddy,' and I slipped into the
front room and listened. And he said, 'All of you come.' Then I went out
too. And he unrolled the Government paper he had in his hand and read it
and told us it meant that all of us was free. Didn't tell us we was free
as he was. Then he said the Government's going to send you some money to
live on. But the Government never did do it. I never did see nobody that
got it. Did you? They didn't give me nothin' and they didn't give my
father nothin'. They just sot us free and turned us loose naked.
"Right after they got through reading the papers and told us we was
free, my daddy took me to the field and put me to work. I'd been workin'
in the house before that.
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