Part 15

"Some de white folks hides dey silver and other things that worth lots of money and hang dem down in de well, so de Yankees not find dem. But dey find dem anyway. Dey breaks open a store what was lock up and told de niggers to git all dey wants. De women ketches up de bottom of dey skirt round de waist and fill dem up with everything dey wants.

"After freedom old massa not 'low my mammy have us chillen. He takes me and my brother, Benny, in de wagon and druv us round and round so dey couldn't find us. My mammy has to git de Jestice of de Peace to go make him turn us a-loose. He brung us to our mammy and was we glad to see her.

"I don't 'member 'xactly when I git marry. It was at Big Cane and when I git marry I jes' git marry, dat's all. Dey was three chillen but dey all dead now and so my husban'."

Laura Redmoun

*Laura Redmoun was born about 1855, a slave of the Robertson family, in Jonestown (now absorbed by Memphis) Tennessee. Laura is a quaint, rotund figure of a woman, a living picture of a comic opera mammy. She lives at 3809 Mayo St., Dallas, Texas.*

"The funny thing 'bout me is, I's a present to the white folks, right off. They's lookin' for my mammy to have a baby and, Gawd bless, I's borned twins, a boy and a girl. When I's six months old, Miss Gusta, my old missy's daughter, marries Mr. Scruggs, and I's give to her for a weddin' present.

"Miss Gusta am proud of me and I slep' right on the foot of her bed. We lived at 144 Third Exchange Street in Memphis. She didn't have but two slaves, me and Lucy, the cook. Law, I didn't know I was no slave. I thunk I's white and plumb indiff'ent from the niggers. I's right s'prised when I finds out I's nigger, jus' like the other black faces!

"I had good times and jes' played round and got in devilment. Sometimes Mr. Scruggs say, 'I's gwine whip dat brat,' but Miss Gusta allus say, 'No you ain't gwine lay you hands on her and iffen you does I'm gwine quit you.' Miss Gusta was indiff'ent to Mr. Scruggs in quality. He fooled her to marry him, lettin' on he got a lot of things he ain't.

"I seen sojers all toggered up in uniforms and marchin' and wavin'. Plenty times they waves at me, but I didn't know what it's all 'bout.

"Miss Gusta allus took me to church and most times I went to sleep by her feet. But when I's 'bout eight the Lawd gits to workin' right inside me and I perks up and listens. Purty soon the glory of Gawd 'scended right down on me and I didn't know nothin' else. I run away up into the ridges and crosses a creek on a foot log. I stays up 'round them caves in tall cane and grass where panthers and bears is for three days 'fore they finds me. They done hear me praisin' Gawd and shoutin', 'I got Jesus.' When they finds me I done slap the sides out my dress, jes' slappin' my hands down and praisin' the Lawd. That was a good dress, too. I heared tell of some niggers wearin' cotton but not me--I weared percale.

"They done take me home and Miss Gusta say, 'You ain't in no fittin' condition to jine a church right now. You got to calm down 'siderable first.' But when I's nine year old she takes me to the Trevesant St. Baptist church and lets me jine and I's baptised in the Mississippi river right there at Memphis.

"Bout that time the Fed'rals come into Memphis and scared the daylights out of folks. Miss Gusta calls me and wrops my hair in front and puts her jewelry in under the plaits and pulls them back and pins them down so you couldn't see nothin'. She got silverware and give it to me and I run in the garden and buries it. I hid it plenty good, 'cause we like to never found it after the Fed'rals was gone. They come right up to our house and Mr. Scruggs run out the back door and tried to leap the rail fence in the backyard. He cotched the seat of his pants on the top rail and jes' hung there a-danglin' till the Fed'rals pulls him down. He hurt his leg and it was a bad place for a long time. When I seed him hangin' there I cut a dido and kep' screamin', 'Miss Gusta, he's a-dyin',' and them Fed'rals got plumb tickled at me.

"They went in the smokehouse and got all the sugar and rice and strowed it up and down the streets and not carin' at all that victuals was scarcer than hen's teeth in them parts!

"Then Miss Gusta done tell me I wasn't no slave no more, but, shucks, that don't mean nothin' to me, 'cause I ain't never knowed I was one.

"In them times the Ku Klux got to skullduggerin' round and done take Mr. Scruggs and give him a whippin' but I never heared what it had to do about. He don't like them none, noways, and shets hisself up in the house. He a curious kind of man, it 'pear to me, iffen I's to tell the plain out truth. I don't think he was much but kind of trashy.

"When I's seventeen Miss Gusta sickened and suffered in her bed in terrible fashion. She begs the doctors to tell her if she's a-dyin' so she could clear up business 'fore she passed away. She took three days and fixed things up and told me she didn't want to leave me friendless and lone. She wanted me to git married. I had a man I thunk I'd think well of marryin' and Miss Gusta give me away on her bed at the weddin' in her room. She told my husband not to cuff me none, 'cause I never been 'bused in my life, and to this day I ain't never been hit a lick in my life.

"My first baby was born the year of the big yellow fever in New Orleans. I had six chillen but they all died when they's little from creepin' spasms. I advertises round in the papers and finds my mammy and she come and lived with me. She's in a pitiful shape. 'Fore the ceasin' of war her master done sold her and the man what bought her wasn't so light on his niggers. She said he made her wear breeches and tote big, heavy logs and plow with oxes. One of the men knocked her on back of the head with a club and from that day she allus shook her head from side to side all the time, like she couldn't git her mind straight. She told me my paw fell off a bluff in Memphis and stuck a sharp rock right through his head. They wrapped him in a blanket and buried him. That's all I ever knowed 'bout him.

"My husband was a good man and a good worker. We farmed and I worked for white folks. We took a notion to come to Texas and I been in these parts ever since.

"I don't have no complaint to make. I seen some hard times, but I's able to do a little work and keep goin'. They is so many mean folks in the world and so many good ones, and I'm mighty proud to say my white folks was good ones."

Elsie Reece

*Elsie Reece, 90, was born a slave of John Mueldrew, in Grimes County, Texas. Elsie came to Fort Worth in 1926 to live with her only remaining child, Mrs. Luffin Baker, who supports Elsie with the aid of her $7.00 monthly old age pension.*

"I's borned in Grimes County, ninety years ago. Dat am long time, child. It am heap of change since den. We couldn't see dem airplanes flyin' in de air and hear folks sing and talk a thousand miles away. When I's de young'un de fartheres' you could hear anybody am 'bout a quarter mile and den dey has to holler like a stuck hawg.

"My massa's name am John Mueldrew and he have a small plantation near Navasota, and 'bout twenty cullud folks, mos' of 'em 'lated to each other. There was seven chillen in mammy's family and I's de baby. Pappy dies when I's a year old, so I don't 'member him.

"Dey larnt me to weave cloth and sew, and my brudder am de shoemaker. My mammy tend de cows and Uncle John am de carpenter. De Lawd bless us with de good massa. Massa John die befo' de war and Missie Mary marries Massa Mike Hendricks, and he good, too. But him die and young Massa Jim Mueldrow take charge, and him jus' as kind as he pappy.

"Nother thing am change a heap. Dat buyin' all us wears and eats. Gosh 'mighty, when I's de gall, it am awful li'l us buys. Us raise nearly all to eat and wear, and has good home-raised meat and all de milk and butter us wants, and fruit and 'lasses and eggs and tea and coffee onct a week. Now I has to live on $7.00 a month and what place am I bes' off? Sho', on de massa's place.

"We'uns has Sundays off and goes to church. Old man Buffington preaches to us after dinner. Dere am allus de party on Saturday night on our place or some other place nearby. We gits de pass and it say what time to be home. It de rule, twelve o'clock. We dances de quadrille and sings and sich. De music am fiddles.

"But de big time and de happy time for all us cullud folks am Christmas. De white folks has de tree in de big house and somethin' for all us. When Missie Mary holler, 'Santa Claus 'bout due,' us all gathers at de door and purty soon Santa 'pears with de red coat and long, white whiskers, in de room all lit with candles. He gives us each de sack of candy and a pair of shoes from de store. Massa never calls for work from Christmas to New Year's, 'cept chores. Dat whole week am for cel'bration. So you sees how good massa am.

"Young Massa Jim and Sam jines de army and I helps make dere army clothes. I's 'bout fourteen den. Lots of young men goes and lots never comes back. Sam gits his right leg shot off and dies after he come home, but Jim lives. Den surrender come and Massa Jim read de long paper. He say, 'I 'splain to yous. It de order from de gov'ment what make it 'gainst de law to keep yous slaves.' You should seed dem cullud folks. Dey jus' plumb shock. Dere faces long as dere arm, and so pester dey don't know what to say or do.

"Massa never say 'nother word and walks away. De cullud folks say, 'Where we'uns gwine live? What we'uns gwine do?' Dey frets all night. Nex' mornin' massa say, 'What you'uns gwine do?' Uncle John say, 'When does we have to go?' Den massa laughs hearty and say dey can stay for wages or work on halves.

"Well, sir, dere a bunch of happy cullud folks after dey larnt dey could stay and work, and my folks stays nearly two years after 'mancipation. Den us all move to Navasota and hires out as cooks. I cooks till I's eighteen and den marries John Love. He am de carpenter and right off builds a house on land he buy from Dr. Terrell, he old massa. I has four chillen, and dey all dead now. He died in 1881, 'way from home. He's on his way to Austin and draps dead from some heart mis'ry. Dat am big sorrow in my life. There I is, with chillen to support, so I goes to cookin' 'gain and we has some purty close times, but I does it and sends dem to school. I don't want dem to be like dey mammy, a unknowledge person.

"After eight years I marries Dave Reece and has two chillen. He am de Baptis' preacher and have a good church till he died, in 1923. Den soon after I gits de letter from old Missie Mary, and she am awful sick. She done write and visit me all dem years since I lef' de old plantation. I draps everything and goes to her and she am awful glad to see me. She begs me not to go back home, and one day she dies sudden-like with a heart mis'ry. She de bes' friend I ever has.

"I comes to Fort Worth in 1926 and lives with my daughter. I's paralyze in de right side and can't work no more, and it am fine I has de good daughter."

Mary Reynolds

*Mary Reynolds claims to be more than a hundred years old. She was born in slavery to the Kilpatrick family, in Black River, Louisiana. Mary now lives at the Dallas County Convalescent Home. She has been blind for five years and is very feeble.*

"My paw's name was Tom Vaughn and he was from the north, born free man and lived and died free to the end of his days. He wasn't no eddicated man, but he was what he calls himself a piano man. He told me once he lived in New York and Chicago and he built the insides of pianos and knew how to make them play in tune. He said some white folks from the south told he if he'd come with them to the south he'd find a lot of work to do with pianos in them parts, and he come off with them.

"He saw my maw on the Kilpatrick place and her man was dead. He told Dr. Kilpatrick, my massa, he'd buy my maw and her three chillun with all the money he had, iffen he'd sell her. But Dr. Kilpatrick was never one to sell any but the old niggers who was past workin' in the fields and past their breedin' times. So my paw marries my maw and works the fields, same as any other nigger. They had six gals: Martha and Pamela and Josephine and Ellen and Katherine and me.

"I was born same time as Miss Sara Kilpatrick. Dr. Kilpatrick's first wife and my maw come to their time right together. Miss Sara's maw died and they brung Miss Sara to suck with me. It's a thing we ain't never forgot. My maw's name was Sallie and Miss Sara allus looked with kindness on my maw. We sucked till we was a fair size and played together, which wasn't no common thing. None the other li'l niggers played with the white chillun. But Miss Sara loved me so good.

"I was jus' 'bout big 'nough to start playin' with a broom to go 'bout sweepin' up and not even half doin' it when Dr. Kilpatrick sold me. They was a old white man in Trinity and his wife died and he didn't have chick or child or slave or nothin'. Massa sold me cheap, 'cause he didn't want Miss Sara to play with no nigger young'un. That old man bought me a big doll and went off and left me all day, with the door open. I jus' sot on the floor and played with that doll. I used to cry. He'd come home and give me somethin' to eat and then go to bed, and I slep' on the foot of the bed with him. I was scart all the time in the dark. He never did close the door.

"Miss Sara pined and sickened. Massa done what he could, but they wasn't no pertness in her. She got sicker and sicker, and massa brung 'nother doctor. He say, 'You li'l gal is grievin' the life out her body and she sho' gwine die iffen you don't do somethin' 'bout it.' Miss Sara says over and over, 'I wants Mary.' Massa say to the doctor, 'That a li'l nigger young'un I done sold.' The doctor tells him he better git me back iffen he wants to save the life of his child. Dr. Kilpatrick has to give a big plenty more to git me back than what he sold me for, but Miss Sara plumps up right off and grows into fine health.

"Then massa marries a rich lady from Mississippi and they has chillun for company to Miss Sara and seem like for a time she forgits me.

"Massa Kilpatrick wasn't no piddlin' man. He was a man of plenty. He had a big house with no more style to it than a crib, but it could room plenty people. He was a medicine doctor and they was rooms in the second story for sick folks what come to lay in. It would take two days to go all over the land he owned. He had cattle and stock and sheep and more'n a hundred slaves and more besides. He bought the bes' of niggers near every time the spec'lators come that way. He'd make a swap of the old ones and give money for young ones what could work.

"He raised corn and cotton and cane and 'taters and goobers, 'sides the peas and other feedin' for the niggers. I 'member I helt a hoe handle mighty onsteady when they put a old woman to larn me and some other chillun to scrape the fields. That old woman would be in a frantic. She'd show me and then turn 'bout to show some other li'l nigger, and I'd have the young corn cut clean as the grass. She say, 'For the love of Gawd, you better larn it right, or Solomon will beat the breath out you body.' Old man Solomon was the nigger driver.

"Slavery was the worst days was ever seed in the world. They was things past tellin', but I got the scars on my old body to show to this day. I seed worse than what happened to me. I seed them put the men and women in the stock with they hands screwed down through holes in the board and they feets tied together and they naked behinds to the world. Solomon the overseer beat them with a big whip and massa look on. The niggers better not stop in the fields when they hear them yellin'. They cut the flesh most to the bones and some they was when they taken them out of stock and put them on the beds, they never got up again.

"When a nigger died they let his folks come out the fields to see him afore he died. They buried him the same day, take a big plank and bust it with a ax in the middle 'nough to bend it back, and put the dead nigger in betwixt it. They'd cart them down to the graveyard on the place and not bury them deep 'nough that buzzards wouldn't come circlin' round. Niggers mourns now, but in them days they wasn't no time for mournin'.

"The conch shell blowed afore daylight and all hands better git out for roll call or Solomon bust the door down and git them out. It was work hard, git beatin's and half fed. They brung the victuals and water to the fields on a slide pulled by a old mule. Plenty times they was only a half barrel water and it stale and hot, for all us niggers on the hottes' days. Mostly we ate pickled pork and corn bread and peas and beans and 'taters. They never was as much as we needed.

"The times I hated most was pickin' cotton when the frost was on the bolls. My hands git sore and crack open and bleed. We'd have a li'l fire in the fields and iffen the ones with tender hands couldn't stand it no longer, we'd run and warm our hands a li'l bit. When I could steal a 'tater, I used to slip it in the ashes and when I'd run to the fire I'd take it out and eat it on the sly.

"In the cabins it was nice and warm. They was built of pine boardin' and they was one long row of them up the hill back of the big house. Near one side of the cabins was a fireplace. They'd bring in two, three big logs and put on the fire and they'd last near a week. The beds was made out of puncheons fitted in holes bored in the wall, and planks laid 'cross them poles. We had tickin' mattresses filled with corn shucks. Sometimes the men build chairs at night. We didn't know much 'bout havin' nothin', though.

"Sometimes massa let niggers have a li'l patch. They'd raise 'taters or goobers. They liked to have them to help fill out on the victuals. 'Taters roasted in the ashes was the best tastin' eatin' I ever had. I could die better satisfied to have jus' one more 'tater roasted in hot ashes. The niggers had to work the patches at night and dig the 'taters and goobers at night. Then if they wanted to sell any in town they'd have to git a pass to go. They had to go at night, 'cause they couldn't ever spare a hand from the fields.

"Once in a while they'd give us a li'l piece of Sat'day evenin' to wash out clothes in the branch. We hanged them on the ground in the woods to dry. They was a place to wash clothes from the well, but they was so many niggers all couldn't git round to it on Sundays. When they'd git through with the clothes on Sat'day evenin's the niggers which sold they goobers and 'taters brung fiddles and guitars and come out and play. The others clap they hands and stomp they feet and we young'uns cut a step round. I was plenty biggity and liked to cut a step.

"We was scart of Solomon and his whip, though, and he didn't like frolickin'. He didn't like for us niggers to pray, either. We never heared of no church, but us have prayin' in the cabins. We'd set on the floor and pray with our heads down low and sing low, but if Solomon heared he'd come and beat on the wall with the stock of his whip. He'd say, 'I'll come in there and tear the hide off you backs.' But some the old niggers tell us we got to pray to Gawd that he don't think different of the blacks and the whites. I know that Solomon is burnin' in hell today, and it pleasures me to know it.

"Once my maw and paw taken me and Katherine after night to slip to 'nother place to a prayin' and singin'. A nigger man with white beard told us a day am comin' when niggers only be slaves of Gawd. We prays for the end of Trib'lation and the end of beatin's and for shoes that fit our feet. We prayed that us niggers could have all we wanted to eat and special for fresh meat. Some the old ones say we have to bear all, 'cause that all we can do. Some say they was glad to the time they's dead, 'cause they'd rather rot in the ground than have the beatin's. What I hated most was when they'd beat me and I didn't know what they beat me for, and I hated them strippin' me naked as the day I was born.

"When we's comin' back from that prayin', I thunk I heared the nigger dogs and somebody on horseback. I say, 'Maw, its them nigger hounds and they'll eat us up.' You could hear them old hounds and sluts abayin'. Maw listens and say, 'Sho 'nough, them dogs am runnin' and Gawd help us!' Then she and paw talk and they take us to a fence corner and stands us up 'gainst the rails and say don't move and if anyone comes near, don't breathe loud. They went to the woods, so the hounds chase them and not git us. Me and Katherine stand there, holdin' hands, shakin' so we can hardly stand. We hears the hounds come nearer, but we don't move. They goes after paw and maw, but they circles round to the cabins and gits in. Maw say its the power of Gawd.

"In them days I weared shirts, like all the young'uns. They had collars and come below the knees and was split up the sides. That's all we weared in hot weather. The men weared jeans and the women gingham. Shoes was the worstes' trouble. We weared rough russets when it got cold, and it seem powerful strange they'd never git them to fit. Once when I was a young gal, they got me a new pair and all brass studs in the toes. They was too li'l for me, but I had to wear them. The brass trimmin's cut into my ankles and them places got mis'ble bad. I rubs tallow in them sore places and wrops rags round them and my sores got worser and worser. The scars are there to this day.

"I wasn't sick much, though. Some the niggers had chills and fever a lot, but they hadn't discovered so many diseases then as now. Dr. Kilpatrick give sick niggers ipecac and asafoetida and oil and turpentine and black fever pills.

"They was a cabin called the spinnin' house and two looms and two spinnin' wheels goin' all the time, and two nigger women sewing all the time. It took plenty sewin' to make all the things for a place so big. Once massa goes to Baton Rouge and brung back a yaller gal dressed in fine style. She was a seamster nigger. He builds her a house 'way from the quarters and she done fine sewin' for the whites. Us niggers knowed the doctor took a black woman quick as he did a white and took any on his place he wanted, and he took them often. But mostly the chillun born on the place looked like niggers. Aunt Cheyney allus say four of hers was massa's, but he didn't give them no mind. But this yaller gal breeds so fast and gits a mess of white young'uns. She larnt them fine manners and combs out they hair.

"Onct two of them goes down the hill to the doll house where the Kilpatrick chillun am playin'. They wants to go in the doll house and one the Kilpatrick boys say, 'That's for white chillun.' They say, 'We ain't no niggers, 'cause we got the same daddy you has, and he comes to see us near every day and fetches us clothes and things from town.' They is fussin' and Missy Kilpatrick is listenin' out her chamber window. She heard them white niggers say, 'He is our daddy and we call him daddy when he comes to our house to see our mama.'

"When massa come home that evenin' his wife hardly say nothin' to him, and he ask her what the matter and she tells him, 'Since you asks me, I'm studyin' in my mind 'bout them white young'uns of that yaller nigger wench from Baton Rouge.' He say, 'Now, honey, I fotches that gal jus' for you, 'cause she a fine seamster.' She say, 'It look kind of funny they got the same kind of hair and eyes as my chillun and they got a nose looks like yours.' He say, 'Honey, you jus' payin' 'tention to talk of li'l chillun that ain't got no mind to what they say.' She say, 'Over in Mississippi I got a home and plenty with my daddy and I got that in my mind.'