Texas Slave Narratives

 

 

 

 

Texas Slave Narrative

  John Crawford

John Crawford , 81, was born a slave on Judge Thompson Rector's plantation at Manor, Texas. After emancipation, John was a share-cropper. He has always lived in Travis County and is now cared for by a daughter at Austin.

John Crawford am me. It am eighty-one years since I's borned and dat's on de old Rector plantation where Manor am now. It wasn't dere den. I knowed the man it was named after. "Ma's name was Viney Rector and the old jedge brung her from Alabama. She milked all the cows two times a day and I had to turn out all de calves. Sometimes dey'd git purty rough and go right to dere mammies. "Pap's name was Tom Townes , 'cause he 'longed on de Townes place. He was my step-pap and when I's growed I tooken my own pap's name, what was Crawford . I never seed him, though, and didn't know nothin' much 'bout him. He's sold away 'fore I's borned. "Pap Townes could make most everythin'. He made turnin' plows and hossshoe nails and a good lot of furniture. He was purty good to me, 'siderin' he wasn't my own pap. I didn't have no hard time, noway. I had plenty bacon and side-meat and 'lasses. Every Sunday mornin' the jedge give us our rations for de week. He wasn't short with dem. neither. "Many was de time Injuns come to Judge Rector's place. Dem Injuns beg for somethin' and the jedge allus give dem somethin'. They wasn't mean Injune, jes' allus beggin'. "I can't read and write to this day. Nobody ever larnt me my A B C's and I didn't git no chance at school. "On Christmas mornin' Massa Rector come out and give each man and woman a big, red pocket handkerchief and a bottle of liquor. He buyed dat liquor by de barrel and liked it hisself. Day why he allus had it on de place. One mornin' the jedge done send word down by de cook for nobody to go to de fields dat day. We all went up to de big house and de jedge git up to make de speech, but am too choke up to talk. He hated to lose he slaves. I reckon. So his son-in-law has to say, 'You folks am now free and can go where you wants to go. You can stay here and pick cotton and git fifty cents de hunerd.' But only two families stayed. De rest pulled out. 

After freedom we rented land on de halves. Some niggers soon got ahead and rented on de third or fourth. When you rent that-a-way you git three bales and de boss git one. But you has to buy you own teams and seed and all on dat plan."Its a fac' we was told we'd git forty acres and a mule. Dat de talk den, but we never did git it."De Ku Klux made a lot of devilment round-about dat county. Dey allus chasin' some nigger and beatin' him up. But some dem niggers sho' 'serve it. When dey gits free, dey gits wild. Dey won't work or do nothin' and thinks dey don't have to. We didn't have no trouble, 'cause we stays on de farm and works and don't have no truck with dem wild niggers In 1877 I marries Fannie Black at de town of Sprinkle. It wasn't sech a town, jes' a li'l place. Me and her stayed married fifty-two years and four months. She died and left me eight year ago. We had seven chillen and they is all livin'. Four is here in Austin and two in California and one in Ohio."I gits a li'l pension, $9.00 de month, and my gal. Susie , takes care of me. I ain't got long to go now 'fore de Lawd gwine call me.


John Crawford , born in slavery around 1837 to the Crawford family of Mississippi, near towns of Sabine and Grandicoe not far from the Mississippi river. These towns are nonexistent now; having gradually died since the Civil War. He now resides at 2418 N. Central Ave., Dallas, Texas, and subsists on the old age pension.

I was born in the days of the double-jinted folks down on Grandpapa Jake Crawford's plantation in Mississippi. I come up in his backyard and I served him past eighteen years. And I tell some of these folks who are tighter across the breast than a baked field lark that I was a whitefolk's nigger of old-time slavery days that served them and served them faithful and my old master Grandpappy Jake left his dying word with me and the whitefolks that I was to be keered for 'til I die. Don't mean nothing to them 'cause they don't know the things I know and they didn't come up in old Grandpappy's yard like I did. Grandpappy Jake and my pappy and his pappy was born and bred in old Virginia State in Charlotte County. They know how to live and how to like gentlemens and no niggerin' 'bout it. When Grandpappy Jake Crawford , my master, come to Mississippi he bought the land, so my pappy tell me, at 14cents a acre and he bought it by the miles. He was the richest man I ever heared tell of. He was the hestest man too that ever put a shoe on. My pappy was named Henry Crawford for Grandpappy Jake Crawford's pappy. My pappy and Grandpappy Jake used to say we is all Crawfords and we got to stick together and they is always been fools 'bout each other My mammy's name was Jane and it looks 'lak she and Old Mistus, her name Mis' Christian , just run a race to see how many babies they going have. They have them like shelling peas out a pod. Seems like they was plumb scared they wasn't going have no company in they old age. My mammy brought fifteen chilluns. Old Mistus mighty fine, portly looking woman but she was a mighty sperrited woman. I ain't saying she wasn't a good woman but she don't love her little niggers like Grandpappy Jake , and the niggers don't love her like they do Grandpappy. I is heared the niggers muttering against her. But 'course they never backtalk her or loudtalk her where she hear them. I seen her once cut a young buck cross the face with her riding whip that laid the skin back 'cause he girthed her horse too tight. She always put store by her horse and she layed it on the niggers if they don't take keer of him. Now Grandpappy Jake set all the time on his porch, maybe in the front, maybe in the back, with his rifle and a readin' out of a book. Many-a-time I seen white men come riding up and throw they reins over the hitching post and ask him could he use a overlooker. Grandpappy always say, "Traveler, I is the overlooker on my lands. I can take keer of my niggers. Nobody bosses them or whups them but me and I ain't having nobody knock my niggers 'round. I wouldn't give four-bits a month for a overlooker. If I tell a nigger to do something once and he don't do it, then I whups him and then he know better next time. I feels right pleasant to bed you and vittleize you here for a resting spell but if you is looking to be a overlooker you is on the wrong place.

When I was a little bitty boy I 'members that Grandpappy used to call all the little niggers up 'round him on the porch and show us how to make shuck dolls and tell us to feel in his pockets for stick candy, rock candy and marbles. He say he like to play with his beard and hair and jest tech him. He used to rub his hand over our head and say, "Grandpappy wouldn't take nothing for his little burr-head niggers." They jest ain't no tellin' how much land Grandpappy had. But he worked twenty-seven yoke of oxes and mules and horses besides. Enduring the Civil war he sent his mules to work on the government breastworks. He had fifty-two hundred bee hive, nine-hundred head of sheeps, three-hundred head of hogs and lots of cows. He said he wanted nuf milk on his place if he want to swim in it he could. He had nine-hundred slaves and more sometimes. They went to breakfast at sunup and then to the fields 'til leven-thirty when they come back to the house at the ringing of a bell for dinner and then back to the fields at one o'clock and work 'til 'bout five. I always remember seeing the slaves come trooping up to the house for dinner in sech a long line. And it 'pears to me plumb unreasonable for one man to own that many people and keep what they make and sell them off or keep them just as he notions. My pappy told me that when he was a young man grandpappy sold him off to some folks who took him off to a place called Denver. He said he slipped away from them and was three years getting back to old Grandpappy. He said he walked it barefoot for hundreds of miles and when he come home old Grandpappy cried and swore a swear that he won't sell no more niggers that don't want to go. He said Grandpappy counted out eighteen-hundred dollars to sent the folks to buy him back. He was mighty good to the niggers. He told them plenty times, "I ain't a man that cares for wealth. Everything I got you niggers made it out'n you sweat. And I want you to take time to set and enjoy it. I got more things I want to do than set and count money." He never worked us in bad weather or in the cold and when it was hot we didn't work in the middle of the day. There is only one thing I could say agin' Grandpappy and I hates to say that. But he taught me hissef "Dont tell a lie for credit when you can tell the truth for cash." Grandpappy don't want the niggers to have learnin' out of books and don't want them to pray. He is scared they will pray for freedom. And he b'lieves they will get if they pray. Better not let Grandpappy ketch you prayin. He reads us out'n the Bible every morning and night. He was a powerful Godly man. Sometimes we little nigger plumb thought he was God. Leastways Old Master was so purty like a woman's face with his big tall standing up and shiny black eyes that we thought God look jest like Grandpappy. But at night in our little log cabin in the quarters Mammy bring the wash pot out of the yard and set it in the middle of the floor and she laugh and cry and sing a little, then she puts her head down in the pot clear to her shoulders and mumbles. We chilluns say, "What you sayin' mammy?" She say, "Shh, I'm prayin'." We way, "What you prayin' bout?" She say, "I'm prayin' for the freedom." But if Grandpappy hear you tell it he will birchbark you." Strangerest thing is that while mammy was in her spell of prayin' that a little boy was eight-year old up North who grew up and set the niggers free. But pappy say to mammy, "I'm right happy and my face is glad when I gets up in the morning and know I got Grandpappy to keer for me. I love Grandpappy 'cause he sets sech store by me.

Now Grandpappy's chilluns was angel chilluns and his grandchilluns was sweet as they could be. Mr. Bill was the one that thought so much of me. He was a real gentleman and when he was a young man they called him Mr. Tipsy Bill 'cause he looked too long down the whiskey glass. But the chilluns and grandchilluns of Grandpappy went to school in a carriage all dressed fine. Mammy always have to button Miss Fannie , Miss Gladyce and Miss Phelia' s shoes for them. She said it outdone her 'cause her chilluns had to go barefoot and crack they heels open and have the ground itch in they feet. Grandpappy wore a special made boot and he always glad when he boys say they want boots like his'n, so he can measure off they feet making 'lowances for growing and get them in New Orleans when he went down the river. Well all the Crawford chilluns is book smart and they want to teach the little niggers how to say they letters out of a book. They set in the pine grove and spell out the letters to us. One day Old Mistus saw us with a book and she come outside with stick candy held out in her hand and she say, "I give you all of this you want if you tell me where you got the book and learned the letters." I spoke up smart as you please and told her. They was 'bout six of us little niggers and she took us in the house and she held our head between her legs and she whipped our back ends with a big wooden paddle. Then she stuck us up the chimney where it was dark and kept us there forty minutes. We was scared fit to die. When she took us out we didn't have as much sense as a wild hog. That's the only time Old Missus whup me but Grandpappy whip me more than once. But he jest pick up little piece of shuck or sech like and whup us, then he always shuk hands with us and tell us, "Course I am not your father, but I got to be your father to see that you get chastising or you will grow up wild as a steer and not fit for killin." He was know in them parts for kind advisements. We went to doing light work when we was seven or eight years old picking up brush and chunks but we didn't work long and had plenty play time. There is so many things I can't get over, and things I can't forget. One thing is the kitchen in Grandpappy's house. It was higger'n a barn. There was four eight-foot fireplaces with ovens and four potracks in each one. There was three womens and one man to do the cooking. There was a big hall with great long tables in it where the slaves et. We et with tin plates and cups. and wooden spoons, knives and forks that the niggers made. There was more than a plenty to eat and folks et three times as much then as they do now. Everything was raised on the place and the only thing folks have now we didn't have then is ice cream. Plenty of corn grown and ground for bread in Grandpappy's grist mill. We et greens, hominy, boiled beef, punkins, taters, whipperwill peas, cabbage, tater boiled peanuts, pork, rabbit, chicken, milk, drip cheese, cakes, custards, molasses and honey in the comb. We drank meal-bran and peanut coffee and cottonseed tea. There wan't no Sunday vittles; every day was Sunday the way we et. But on Christmas we had biscuits. Grandpappy had biscuits at his table every morning but flour cost $68 a barrel in New Orleans and Old Mistus always say, "Dont know where I'm going get anymore flour when this give out." But Grandpappy say, "I ain't going cheat my table none." He had so much money he didn't have to. In his counting room he had stacks of gold money that he let the grandbabies play with and he had little hogsheads holding dollars in silver and little dimes that they called five-cent pieces.

When the Civil war come my grandpappy was one that went with him and measured three-quarters of a mile from the house to bury the gold and silver. I seen after the war when he had Confederate money bailed like cotton in the counting room. You couldn't hardly move 'round that place 'thout stepping on a little nigger and if Grandpappy see you hanging in the door, he call you in and give you a cup of coffee. He drank Arcuckle coffee he got in New Orleans and he put white sugar in it. Most of the time niggers had brown sugar. He say, "Little niggers need a little sweetnin'; coffee plumb good for black and white, There was a big smokehouse full of hams and sausages and middlin meat and dried beef. Grandpappy and the boys and some of the niggers would go on big hunting trips and fishing trips. They used to come back with wagons loaded with deer and wild hogs and turkeys, and possums and coons for the table. I have seen them in the kitchen put in four or six big middlins from hogs for the niggers. The pots in the kitchen held forty gallons. Old grandpappy used to send mens and the dogs to hunt panthers and they like to run at night and you could hear the dogs a bayin' up and down the creeks. Billy Buck was a old nigger man didn't do nothing but keep grandpappy's still. They made whiskey out of corn and made whiskey out of peaches. Then they made apple cider and grape wine and dandelion wine and alder (elderberry) wine. The alder was for the niggers. At the parties and at Christmas the niggers got plenty of whiskey. The Christmas I was fourteen I got drunk. Grandpappy caught my head in his arm and drubbed my head a-laughin' fit to kill and said. "Little nigger you is drunker than a coot; but a little whiskey is good for white and black." There was big doings at Christmas. Christmas morning there was a big tree in Grandpappy's best parlor and he would set in the parlor and wait while all the niggers try to slip in and get him "Christmas Gift." Each one try to say it first before Grandpappy say it. At Christmas everybody gets new clothes and tobacco and some special thing. The chilluns get toys and oranges and candy. Then one of Grandpappy's girls play on the organ and one on the harp and everybody sings; Hark a Savior is Born. Then we have a hreakfast with fried chicken and biscuit and real coffee. For dinner we always have roasted wild turkeys and walnut and fruit cake. We drank and ate so much it takes us a day or two to get over it. If we get sick though old Grandpappy liked to come and measure out the medicine. He give us coperas, blue mass, ipecac, rhubarb and walnut tea. Every spring he doses the little niggers with Jerusalem oak and sorghum syrup for worms. Niggers would sho' git wormy. When I think of what the 'calcitrant Niggers did and what Grandpappy did I feel like laughin' all over agin. There was some niggers wouldn't work and they went off in the swamp lands down in the bottoms on the place and they would sleep in the bresh all day and at night slip up to the potato kiln, where they banked the potatoes in ashes, and take out potatoes and go to the smokehouse and get the meat and they cook and eat in the swamps. Grandpappy finally koch them with the dogs and brought them up to the house and he sent for a smithy. He had thought up a way to keep them where they b'longed. He had a iron band put 'round they leg and one 'round they waist. And a iron pole that went straight up in the air fastened on the side of they leg through the iron bands. And five feet over they heads he hung a brass bell on the top where they can't reach it. Then he turned them loose and told them, "Dont you let me hear that bell leavin' this place, or God have mercy on your black hides." Well those niggers would get down in the bottom land where the mud was and lay down and scoot 'long in the mud 'til they fill the bell up with mud. Then they lay in the sun, or by a fire, 'til it bakes the mud and the clapper don't move and then they slips off and gets somebody to cut it loose. Grandpappy got outdone buying bells.

Those niggers told me a sure way to keep the dogs from ketching you. They said if you put red pepper and turpentine in your shoes they cant run you, cause they cant scent you. Another way was when you went through a fence if you take the fence pole up and turn it up-side down and stick the top in the post-hole then the dogs will stop and bay at the ple. But they said the bestes way was to go straight to a young hickory sapling, take a knife and split it up and down and then tie the top together and crawl through the slit and no dog can follow you then. Grandpappy always ketch them someway or tother. I was with him once hunting the niggers and we was riding horseback and we heard the dogs baying down in the brakes. When we got there they was four niggers in the tallest slimmest pines. I don't see how they got there. Grandpappy said them just be half ape-monkeys. Said he knew he had some half devil niggers but didn't know they was half ape-monkeys One time we was passing a place and we seen some niggers they had put in yokes. It was plumb bad. They lifted the second rail on the fence and sot it down over the neck of the nigger and held it betwixt the bottom rail and the second rail. The white men had a lether strap one-inch thick, two-inches wide, and 'bout a yard long with a wooden handle. They whupped the niggers over the head and they called it the 'red heifer.' Heared tell that they break some of them's neck. Seems like niggers had hard time lots of farms but at Grandpappy's we never wanted for work and something to eat and a place to sleep and we know we git buried right. In the cahins we had good lowering mattresses and mammy and pappy had a bed. We made the ticking out of good strong lowering cloth that they wove in the weaving house and we fill it up with moss and it slep' right well. And we have plenty of fire in the fireplace with good lighter (pine) knots to make a big light and fire. We had to light fires from a big flint rock look like a Indian arrow head. We hold a piece of cotton to ketch the spark when you knock the rocks together downways. Master sent off to buy candles. But one day there was a man named Dr. Goodloe came a-visiting and said it was foolishment and he showed how to make the candles at home. They got some brass molds and they melt out the mutton and beef suet and they put a twisted thread in the mold with a loop tied in the end and they pour the hot suet in the mold over the thread. Then they take and run a stick through the loops in the thread all in a line of molds and when it sets they just lift the stick and the candles come out. They used to make hundreds of them at one setting. They used to make fat ones big as your arm. Then they put them in the lamps a-hanging down from the ceilings in the big house and light it up big as day. In the cabins we put fried meat grease in a tin cup and hang a wicker of wool over the side and light it up and give it a pretty fair light. Grandpappy had 'leven parlors and bed-rooms 'cause he had so many folks to bed down and the company come in wagons and carriage loads. He put powerful store by the house. He had big tall beds laced together with ropes with posts than went nearly to the ceiling and satin lined teasters. The ticking was filled with feathers and you could nearly smother to death in them feather beds they just fill up 'round the folks. All the furniture in the house is made out'n wood. I 'members when they got a pianny, didn't look like the ones they got now. Look more like a table. All the niggers come up to the house to see it and folks came in admiring it. Some of the niggers say the organ a-plenty good for them. Windows was different in them days too. They all got wooden side shetters on the outside so they can close it up tight. Used to have parties in the big house with dancing and music and the womens and the mens dressing fine and the niggers playing fiddles for them. I told Grandpappy I want to fiddle and he gets me a fiddle and I used to be one of the finest fiddlers 'round in them parts. The niggers have the patting parties on Saturday nights. They call them patting parties 'cause the ones don't dance set 'round and pat they hands. We danced the reels and twenty-five or thirty niggers playin' the fiddles. Some of the best songs go like this Chicken crow at midnight Its almost day Chicken crow at midnight Its almost day Go and get your Georgia Lover 'Cause it's almost day Go and get your Georgia lover 'Cause its almost day Go and get your Georgia lover We danced the night away. And nuther one was:  Two barrels pickled pork Two barrels meal Going tell my Jesus Got religion in my heel. Now sometimes some of the niggers think you ought not dance. We had nigger preacher named Hi Bill Phil Anderson, what Grandpappy bought off'n a man come by with a drove of slaves. He was a shoutin' baptist preacher what talked out of the Bible. He held the prayer meetings in the bresh arbor and the niggers set there on Sundays from 'leven in the morning 'til past dark at night. My mammy got converted to the song: Way down yonder by myself Couldn't hear nobody pray Way down yonder in the valley Couldn't hear nobody pray Had to pray myself Jest had to pray myself Then: Father I stretch my hand to thee No other help I know Nuther song was: The greatest day I ever saw Angels weep over Zion's hill Now your troubles soon be over And get your Jesus And hold him fast Faster and tighter than iron bands Hold on out Cause your troubles soon be over, I am a soldier of the cross A follower of the lamb. And why should I fear to speak That pleasant Man's name When I been there 10,000 years. Please jine the Sunday sont Most pretty song was: I am going to preach my gospel Said the Lord Said the Lord Said the Lord Going to preach my gospel And lead my great commission on Dont be damned by wronging And let my Gospel go on And I'm going to be with my father In that holy land. There was lots of jest make-up songs.

Niggers like to sing and make up songs. In the fields when they pick cotton a bunch a-going one side lift up they head and roll out "uhm-m-m-m-m, yo-o-o-o", and then those on tuther side pick it up and go the same way and jest put some make-up words to it. I seen some niggers chained in a line that they was a-driftin' to the west. They swing they ankle chains and it clinks to moat a music and the champs a song, "Yo-o-o-o---o, Yo-ho-ho-ho-ho---, Swing long my bullies, swing, swin-n-ng long my bullies." They didn't have no hair on they heads. One morning 'fore sun-up when my mammy is on the way to the big house she hears a horse-arunning. She goes back and gets a pappy and he comes and helps the man off his horse and he is a nigger offen Grandpapy's olderest daughter's place over in 'nuther county. They wakes Grandpappy and Old Mistus up and tells her the little gal baby done died from a choking spasm she got and they wants them to come for the funeral. Grandpappy and Old Mistus cry like they done broke they heart but Grandpappy says, "Wake everybody on this place up", and he has his boy Joe blow the horn. All the niggers come to the house. He tells them no work on the place and he is raging mad at Young Missus husband 'cause he 'lows to bury the little gal over there. Grandpappy says, "Hitch up the carriage and the biggest wagon, we going go fetch the little baby home. None of my blood going be stored away in strange country all by itself." So they starts off a running the horses and my pappy goes a-driving the coffin wagon. They comes back in mournful profession and folks from that country come. All the womens cry and the mens jest hold they hats in they hands. And they puts the little gal baby in a high green pretty piece of ground and plants the place 'round with cape jessamine (jasmine). Pore Grandpappy is a grievin' man and his eyes don't shine no-more. He was always one with a fondering for the little babies. He goes out to the nursing house every day and looks at the little niggers and pokes them in they bellies and fusses if they not fat and full. He hists them up in the air and says, "This is a fine youngun." Sometimes he shout out, "Change they swaddlins, plenty hippins. Ain't no good for white or black lay in muck. Sometimes niggers die but not much; folks was so much healthier in them days. There was a burying ground down by the creek on a noll. When they die Grandpappy tell all the niggers they can have worktime off and mourn and go to the funeral. He makes the other niggers go the family that has the dying and wash up they house and clothes for them so they can wail. They didn't have no coffins in them days; they morticed out a pine log with a foot adze and lined it with curzey cloth and put the dead in that. Then they hauled it down to the burying ground and grandpappy read out of the Book. He always say, "The Lord giveth and the Lord taketh away. Blessed be the name of the Lord," and, "I know he was good and the Master up there going look kind on his chilluns jest like old Grandpappy look kind on you down here; and Grandpappy going jine with him up yonder some day." When the weather so bad they cant have much of a burying he lets the niggers take nuther day off later on in good weather for mournin'.

One night the bell rings and all the niggers come up to the place and Grandpappy stand on the porch and tell them that the Yankees done fire cannon guns on the folks and that Mr. Tom and Mr. Phil and Mr. Tipsy Bill got to go fight Yankees. My pappy and my grandpappy say they got to go look after young masters and I want to go with Mr. Tipsy Bill but Grandpappy says I'm just a little nigger. But Mr. Tipsy Bill says he will bring me a Yankee sword. They jined with the Ninth and Tenth cavalry. I seen them when they rid away. Grandpappy laugh and slap the horses on the rump and the gals a-laughing and Old Missus a-laughing and a-crying too. That was in 1861. Them was the baddest days. "They run the old coons over the fence and the young ones through the cracks." I spent them four years on my knees in the weaving house. I threw the shickle (shuttle) for Old Missus to weave. Some of the nigger womens spin, some card and some weave. I 'members we made a sloth with three strans cotton and two of wool. Missus had a fine spinning machine that every time it spin a hundred and fifty yards of thread it go double click. We measured cloth by the hanks. A hank and a half was a yard. I got the whirring noise in my ears now from the spinning wheels. The first machinery I ever seen was a sewing machine that Grandpappy brought up the river from New Orleans. It worked by winding a wheel on the side by hand. 'Course they made all our clothes in the weaving-house and the clothes were good. But shoes were miserable. They soaked a beef hide in the creek and got it soft and all the hair come off and then they make shoes out of that and we called it the everlasting leather. The folks in them parts start coming in to the big house a crying and saying the bushwhackers what was reserters from the army is coming and taking they things and having no mercy on the womens. The bushwhackers was hiding in the hills and swooping down when men folks was gone. They ain't never bother Grandpappy's place 'cause he sets all the time with that rifle gun. But he sends word all 'bout them parts for the womens and chilluns to come to his house and he will keer for them and ain't no bushwhacker going bother them 'cause of the rifle gun. Thats what they do; the womens come and bring the chilluns and we beds then and feeds they horses. One night the mens what ain't at the war come and tell Grandpappy to ride with them to hang the bushwhackers. He goes on his horse with them. Me and mammy is setting in the cook house and we hears a lot of horses and mammy sends me running to tell the womens to get to the loft 'cause mens is coming. I comes back with mammy. 'Bout twenty-five or thirty mens come in and is worserest looking mens I ever seen. They tell mammy get them something to eat. She starts slicing ham and they say, "Where is the white womens?" She tells them they all gone fur away and they ain't nobody 'bout. Then a baby cries up in the loft like squirrels climbing over each other. Mammy puts her apron over her head and say, "I pray God to die." The mens stay up there two or three hours and then they come down and grab something to eat and ride away. They is swinging old muzzleloaders bout all the time. The womens come down and they swear life ain't worth the living in them days. Old Missus say, "If the mens dodn't kill them I will kill them myself. All the womens mooded to die. Then the mens come riding home with Grandpappy and they horses is lathered. They come in and the womens tell them that they ain't seen no mercy. Grandpappy nearly tear his hair out. They go and get on they horses. That day the womens set on the chairs not moving nor talking a word. Old Missus sets on the door steps with a gun crost her knees. That night the mens come home and they say the bushwhackers is buzzard bait; they is hanging up in the air off'n a limb. Grandpappy's horse is blowed and he lay down and never get up. Lord God there was sorrowin' in them days and in that house. Grandpappy gets mighty enfeeblin and the sperrit all gone out of Old Missus Well the time come when Grandpappy call me and nother boy and tell us we got to go in the wagon to mansfield (Louisiana). Grandpappy goes on the horse. When we got there we find Grandpappy with pappy and my grandpappy and the place is a terrible sight. Time so long ago but it 'pears to me its Mr. Tom is dead. Grandpappy done cry til his beard is wet. A few mens is moving around but the most of folks ain't moving 'cause they is lying scattered around dead. Folks is moving around looking at them. Well we helps to dig a big trench three-quarters of a mile long, six feet deep and six feet wide and we puts the mens in there and kiver them with dirt. But we puts Mr. Tom in the waggin and take him home. Afore we left Pappy, Phil , Bill and me picked up 'nuf lead that when we moulded it in bullets we had nuf to last us eight years. I heared guns and shootin' poppin' way off somewheres. Grandpappy tells my pappy and grandpappy to come home to stay. When we got home I runs to the cabin 'cause I say I ain't going to see Old Missus when she sees Mr. Tom . But I seen her come runnin' out'n the house with her hands throwed to the sky. Well pretty soon things sort of settle down and then the Yankees come. They come down there with fine uniforms and they stay a week and Grandpappy says, "You ain't 'vinced me none." But one day he calls all the niggers up to the house and he stands on the porch with his best coat on and says, "Abraham Lincoln , a Yankee gentleman done sent these blue-coated gentlemen down here to tell me that I dont own my niggers no more and you got to be 'constructed. You is good mens and womens and I is been a good master and I ain't going let you starve and go wandering 'round 'mongst strange folks. I got uncut land. You got axes. I'm going send you down in the woods and you going to clear you out a little piece of land for youself and for your chilluns. But anybody want to work on my land for me and live in they little cabins can have part of what they make. 'Pears like that was in June. Some of the niggers went in the woods and start clearing land and they get victuals from Grandpappy. They put up little houses. They put pine poles in the ground 'bout two foot apart cross from each other in a line and made a square out of it. And then they started filling these pin poles with long logs and notched the ends together. Shortly after they build they houses was the first time I ever seen any nails. Grandpappy gave the little pieces of land to the niggers that cleared it. Then he made my pappy the overlooker on his place for the niggers who work for him.Grandpappy got more and more enfeeblin and he was a very old man. For a year he lingered 'round not able for anything but to set in the sun and grieve. He stayed in his bedroom most of the time, and he talked to my pappy there 'bout the land and the planting. He say, "Henry , plant the honey cane for the best molasses and the early amberi. for the hogs and cattle. The sweetnin good for the cattle."Then one time he said, "Henry , I'm going to get me a new suit and some new boots. Measure me off for them. And don't you never take my boots off'n me 'til I'm ready for the new ones." Pappy said it was a new black suit cost $75.


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