Part 7

"After freedom, I remember one weddin' the white folks had. That was when John Kanedy (Kennedy) married Melinda Johnson. He was a man that lived there on the river and was there up to the time he died. I wasn't at the weddin', but I was at the infair. They were married east of Hondo City. They had the infair then and it was a kind of celebration after the weddin'. Ever'body met there and had a big dance and supper and had a big time. They danced all night after the supper and then had a big breakfast the next mornin'. I was little, but I remember the supper and breakfast, for I was enjoyin' that myself. They was lots to eat, and they had it too. After freedom, I remember these quiltin's where they would have big dinners. They would have me there, threadin' needles for 'em. We always had a big time Christmas. They had dances and dinners for a week. Yes'm, the cullud people did. They would celebrate the holidays out. That was all free too, and they all had plenty to eat. They would meet at one place one night and have a dance and supper and, the next night, meet over at another place and have the same thing.

"When I got to workin' for myself, it was cow work. I done horseback work for fifty years. Many a year passed that I never missed a day bein' in the saddle. I stayed thirteen years on one ranch. The first place was right below Hondo City. His name was Tally Burnett and I was gettin' $7.50 a month. Went to work for that and stayed about three or four months and he raised my wages to what the others was gettin' and that was $12.50. He said I was as good as they were. Then I went to Frio City. I done the same kind of work, but I went with the people that nearly raised me, the Rutledges.

"That's where I was give twice in the census. My mother gave me in and he gave me in. That was one time they had one man too many.

"I married when I was with them and I worked for him after that. That was when we would work away down on the Rio Grande, when Demp Fenley and Lee Langford and Tom Roland and the two Lease boys and one or two more was deliverin' cattle to the Gold Franks' ranch. He wanted 8,000 two-year-old heifers. He had 150,000 acres of land and wanted cattle to stock it. Some taken a contract to deliver so many and some taken a contract to deliver so many, so these men I was with went down below Laredo and down in there. We wound that up in '85. In '86, I went to Kerr County and taken a ranch out there on the head of the Guadalupe River. I stayed there two years and a half, till they sold out. This man I was workin' for was from Boston, and he leased the ranch and turned it over to me and I done all the hirin' and payin' off and buyin' and ever'thing. When he sold out, I left and went on the Horton ranch about thirteen months.

"My first wife died in 1892, but we had been separated about five or six years. I married again in Bandera and quit ranchin' and went to stock farmin' for Albert Miller, then leased a place from Charley Montague two years, then went over into Hondo Canyon and leased a place there in '98. We stayed there till 1906, then came to Uvalde. I leased a place out here, about two hundred acres, four miles from town, and had odd jobs around here too. Then, about 1907, we went to Zavala County and stayed till 1919. I leased a place here, then, and finally settled at this place I'm on now and have been here ever since.

"I've got 11 chillen livin'. One boy, Alfred, is in Lousiana and I don't know what he's doin', but he's been married about five times. I have a boy workin' in the post office in San Antonio named Mack, and the rest of the chillen are here. There's Sarah, Riley, Frank, James, Banetta, John, Theodore, Tommy, Annie Laurie. They all live here and work at different places.

"I know when we used to camp out in the winter time we would have these old-time freezes, when ever'thing was covered in ice. We would have a big, fat cow hangin' up and we could slice that meat off and have the best meals. And when we was on the cow hunts we would start out with meal, salt and coffee and carry the beddin' for six or eight men on two horses and carry our rations on another horse. I guess it would scare people now to hear 'em comin' with all them pots and pans and makin' all that racket.

"When we camped and killed a yearlin' the leaf fat and liver was one of the first things we would cook. When they would start in to gather cattle to send to Kansas, they would ride out in the herd and pick out a fat calf, and they would get the 'fleece' and liver and broil the ribs. The meat that was cut off the ribs was called the fleece. It was a terr'ble waste, for many a time, the hams wasn't even cut out of the hide, jes' left there. Old Man Alec Rutledge used to say, when they would throw out bread and meat, he would say, 'I'll tell you, Tom, he will have to walk alone sometimes because this willful waste will make woeful wants.' He was talkin' about his brother--they was two of 'em and sure 'nough, his brother finally lost all his cattle, quit the business, and never had nothin' left. There would be an awful lot of good meat wasted, and now we are payin' for it.

"The first fence I ever seen wasn't any larger then this addition here, and it was put up out of pickets. The Mexicans used to build lots of fences and we got the idea from them, mostly on these old-timey stake-and-rider fences. It was an awful pasture when they had eight mile of fence. The way they made the field fences was nothin' but brush. I remember when I was a little fellow at John Kanady's (Kennedy's), George Johnson would come over and stay with his sister, Mrs. Kanady, and he would keep the cattle out of the field. One day, he came there and put me on his horse. He had loosened up his girt, and I got out there a little ways and one of the cows turned back. The horse was a regular old cow pony and when that cow turned back, the old horse turned just as quick and the saddle slipped and I stayed there.

"Oh, pshaw! they turn so quick you have to be on the lookout. You have to watch the horse as well as the cow. Some of them horses get pretty smart. One time they were cuttin' cattle and a fellow brought a cow to the edge of the herd and the cow turned back and when she did, the horse cut back too and left him there. When he went from under him, that fellow's spurs left a mark clear across the saddle as he went over. It was my saddle he was ridin' and that mark never did leave it, where the spurs cut across it.

"We've done some ridin' even after my wife, here, and I were married. She's seen 'em breakin' horses and all that pitchin' and bawlin'. But, I never was no hand to show off. If I kep' my seat, that was all I wanted. You see lots of fellows ridin' just to show off, but I never was for anything like that.

"No, I never did go up on the trail. I've helped prepare the herd to take. Usually, there would be one owner takin' his cattle up on the trail. They had no place to hold the cattle, only under herd. Usually, they would start with a thousand or fifteen hundred head, but they didn't put 'em all together till they got away out on the divide. They would have 'em shaped up as they gathered 'em and jes' hold what they wanted to send. It didn't take so many men, either, because they all understood their business.

"I was jes' thinkin' about when Mr. Demp Fenley and Rutledge was here. They had about nine hundred head of cattle. We brought 'em right in below Pearsall, right about the Shiner ranch, and delivered 'em there. But before we got there at a little creek they called _Pato_, they was hardly any place to bed the cattle because they was so much pear[TR: cactus]. Mr. Rutledge and I always bedded the cattle down, and then I would go on the last relief, usually about the time to get up, anyway. He used me all the time when they would get ready to go to camp in the evenin', and we'd spread 'em out and let 'em graze before beddin' 'em down. Sometimes he would give me a motion to come over there, and I knew that meant an animal to throw. He always got me to do the ropin' if one broke out. Well, we was comin on with those cattle and they was a steer that gave us trouble all the time. As soon as you got away, he would walk out of the herd. Well, we got the cattle all bedded down and they were quiet, but that steer walked out. I was ridin' Mr. Fenley's dun horse, and Mr. Rutledge says to me, 'I tell you what we'll do. We'll ketch that steer out here and give 'im a good whippin'.' I says, 'We'll get into trouble, too.' Well, he was to hold 'im away from the herd and I was to rope 'im, but the steer run in front of him and out-run 'im. If he would have run in behind him, I would 'a caught 'im, but that steer beat 'im to the herd and run right into the middle of 'em. And did he stampede 'em! Those cattle run right into the camp, and the boys all scramblin' into the wagon and gettin' on their horses without their boots on. One steer fell and rolled right under the chuck wagon. You know, we run those cattle all night, tryin' to hold 'em. It was a pear flat there, and next mornin' that pear was all beat down flat on the ground. They sure did run, and all because of that foolishness. Mr. Rutledge got to me and told me not to tell it, and I don't reckin to this day anybody knows what done that.

"I never told you about the panther about to get on to me, did I? Well, we was out on the Rio Grande, about thirty-one or thirty-two miles beyond Carrizo. It was at the _Las islas_ (The Islands) Crossin'. I was about three days behind the outfit when they went out there. That was in July, and they was a law passed that we had to quit wearin' our guns the first day of July and hang 'em on the ho'n of our saddle. When I got to the outfit, the boys was gettin' pretty tired herdin'. They had to bring 'em out about six miles to grass and to this little creek. We would put 'em in the pen at night and feed 'em hay. We were waitin' there for them to deliver some cattle out of Mexico. The Mexican told me they was somethin' out there where they were herdin' sheep that was scarin' the sheep out of the pen at night. I had seen some bobcats, but I laid down under one of these huisache trees and went to sleep. I had my pistol on and was layin' there and about two o'clock, I woke up. I turned over and rested myself on my elbow and looked off there about 12 feet from me and there stood a big old female panther. She was kind of squattin' and lookin' right at me. I reached right easy and got my Winchester that was layin' beside me and I shot her right between the eyes. Why, I had one of her claws here for a long time. She had some young ones somewhere. I imagined, though, she was goin' to jump right on me. It wasn't no good feelin', I know. She was an awful large one.

"Oh, my goodness! I have seen lobos, eight or ten in a bunch. They're sure mean. I've seen 'em have cattle rounded up like a bunch of cow hands. If you heard a cow or yearlin' beller at night, you could go next mornin' and sure find where they had killed her. They would go right into the cow or calf and eat its kidney fat first thing. I tell you, one sure did scare me one time. I was out ridin', usually ropin' and brandin' calves, and I came across a den in the ground. I heard something whinin' down there in that hole. It was a curiosity to me and I wanted to get one of those little wolf pups. That was what I thought it was. I got down there and reached in there and got one of those little fellows. They was lovos (lobos). They are usually gray, but he was still black. They are black at first, then they turn gray. He was a little bit of a fellow. Well, I got him out and the old lovo wolf run right at me, snappin' her teeth, and my horse jerked back and came near gettin' away. But I hung to my wolf and got to my horse and got on and left there. I didn't have nothin' to kill her with. I was jes' a boy, then. I took that pup and give it to Mrs. Jim Reedes, down on the Hondo, and she kep' it till it began eatin' chickens.

"I had a bear scare, too. That was in '87, about fifty years ago. Well, Ira Wheat was sheriff at Leakey in Edwards County, then. I went down there, and I was ridin' a horse I broke for a sheriff in Kerr County. I came to Leakey to see Wheat--you see they was burnin' cattle (running the brands) all over that country then. As I was ridin' along, I seen some buzzards and I rode out there. Somethin' had killed a hog and eat on it. I knowed it was a bear afterwards, but then I went on down to Leakey and started back, I got up on the divide, at the head of a little canyon and I seen those buzzards again. I seen two black things and I jes' thought to myself them buzzards was comin' back and eatin' on that dead hog. I rode up and seen that it was two bears and I made a lunge at 'em and the old bear run off and the little cub ran up a tree. I thought, 'I'll ketch you, you little rascal.' So I tied my horse and I went up the tree after the cub and when I was near 'im, he squalled jes' like a child. I tell you, when it squalled that way, here came that old bear and begin snuffin' around the tree. My horse was jes' rearin' and tryin' to break loose out there. I tell you, when I _did_ get down there and get to him, I had to lead him about two hundred yards before I could ever get on him. He sure was scared. Like it was when I was a boy down on the Hondo one time and I could hear horses comin' and thought it was Indians and after awhile, I couldn't hear nothin' but my heart beatin'."

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Uncle Tom Mills is one of the most contented old darkies surviving the good old days when range was open and a livelihood was the easiest thing in the world to get. He lives in the western part of Uvalde, in a four-room house that he built himself. A peach orchard and a grape arbor shade the west side of the house. It is here that Uncle Tom spends many hours cultivating his little garden patch. Contented and well-fed milk cows lie in the shade of the oak trees in a little pasture east of the house, and he proudly calls attention to their full udders and sleek bodies. His wife, Hattie, laughs and joins him in conversation, helping to prod his memory on minor events. He smiles a lot and seems optimistic about most things. I did not hear him speak grudgingly toward anyone, or make a complaint about the old-age pension he gets. He is always busy about the place and claims that he can do a lot of work yet.

La San Mire

*La San Mire, 86, aged French Negro of the Pear Orchard Settlement, near Beaumont, Texas, is alert and intelligent, and his long, well-formed hands gesture while he talks. He was born in Abbeville Parish, Louisiana, a slave of Prosper Broussard. His father was a Spaniard, his mother spoke French, and his master was a Creole. La San's patois is superior to that of the average French Negro. His story has been translated.*

"The old war? No, I don't remember so much about it, because I was so young. I was ten years old at the beginning of the war. I was born the 13th of May, but I do not know of what year, in the Parish of Abbeville, on M'sieu Prosper's plantation between Abbeville and Crowley. My parents were slaves. My father a Spaniard, who spoke Spanish and French. My mother spoke French, the old master too, all Creoles. I, as all the other slaves, spoke French.

"During the war all the children had fear. I drove an old ox-cart in which I helped pick up the dead soldiers and buried them. A battle took place about 40 miles from the plantation on a bluff near a large ditch--not near the bayou, no. We were freed on July 4th. After the war I remained with my old master. I worked in the house, cooked in the kitchen. Early each morning, I made coffee and served it to my master and his family while they were in the bed.

"The old master was mean--made slaves lie on the ground and whipped them. I never saw him whip my father. He often whipped my mother. I'd hide to keep from seeing this. I was afraid. Why did he whip them? I do not remember. He did not have a prison, just 'coups de fault' (beatings). But not one slave from our plantation tried to escape to the north that I can remember.

"The slaves lived in little cabins. All alike, but good. One or two beds. Rooms small as a kitchen. Chimneys of dirt. Good floors. We had plenty to eat. Cornbread and grits, beef, 'chahintes'(coons), des rat bois (possum), le couche-couche, and Irish and sweet potatoes.

"Everyone raised cotton. In the evenings the slave women and girls seeded the cotton, carded it, made thread of it on the spinning wheel. They made it into cotton for dresses and suits. No shoes or socks. In winter the men might wear them in winter. Never the women or children.

"How many slaves? I do not recall. There were so many the yard was full. They worked from sun-up to sundown, with one hour for dinner. School? I hoed cotton and drove the oxen to plow the field.

"I never went to Mass before I was twenty years old. Yes, there were churches and the others went, but I did not want to go. There were benches especially for the slaves. Yes, I was baptized a Catholic in Abbeville, when I was big.

"Sunday the Negro slaves had round dances. Formed a circle--the boys and the girls--and changed partners. They sang and danced at the same time. Rarely on Saturday they had the dances. They sang and whistled in the fields.

"The marriages of the slaves were little affairs. Before the witnesses they'd 'sauter le balais'--the two--and they were married. No celebration, but always the little cakes.

"We had no doctor. We used 'vingaire' (an herb) for the fever; la 'chaspare' (sarsaparilla); la 'pedecha (an herb), sometimes called L'absinthe amer, in a drink of whiskey or gin, for the fever. Des regulateurs (patent medicines). On nearly all plantations there were 'traiteurs', (a charm-doctor, always a Negro).

"Noel we had the little cakes and special things to eat, but no presents.

"I was married by the judge first, and after the marriage was blessed by the priest. I was 21 years old. I wore a new suit, because I had some money. I worked in the house during the day and at night I caught wild horses and sold them. I remember my wedding day. It was the Saturday before Mardi Gras. My wife came from Grand Chenier (Cameron) to Abbeville when she was small. We had 16 children, 11 boys and five girls. Three girls and two boys died when they were small.

"One year after my marriage I left the big house and made a home of my own. For an enclosure I made a levee of earth around. I planted cotton. I worked the place for a half or a third.

"I came to Beaumont 12 years ago, so my children could work, because I was sick. I could no longer work."

Charley Mitchell

*Charley Mitchell, farmer in Panola Co., Texas, was born in 1852, a slave of Nat Terry, an itinerant Baptist preacher of Lynchburg, Virginia. Charley left the Terrys one year after he was freed. He worked in a tobacco factory, then as a waiter, until 1887, when he moved to Panola Co. For fifty years he has farmed in the Sabine River bottom, about twenty-five miles southeast of Marshall, Texas.*

"I's born in Virginia, over in Lynchburg, and it was in 1852, and I 'longed to Parson Terry and Missy Julia. I don't 'member my pappy, 'cause he's sold when I's a baby, but my mammy was willed to the Terrys and allus lived with them till freedom. She worked for them and they hired her out there in town for cook and house servant.

"They hired me out most times as nuss for white folks chillen, and I nussed Tom Thurman's chillen. He run the bakery there in Lynchburg and come from the north, and when war broke they made him and 'nother northener take a iron clad oath they wouldn't help the north. Durin' the war I worked in Massa Thurman's bakery, helping make hard tack and doughnuts for the 'federate sojers. He give me plenty to eat and wear and treated me as well as I could hope for.

"Course, I didn't git no schoolin'. The white folks allus said niggers don't need no larnin'. Some niggers larnt to write their initials on the barn door with charcoal, then they try to find out who done that, the white folks, I mean, and say they cut his fingers off iffen they jus' find out who done it.

"Lynchburg was good sized when war come on and Woodruff's nigger tradin' yard was 'bout the bigges' thing there. It was all fenced in and had a big stand in middle of where they sold the slaves. They got a big price for 'em and handcuffed and chained 'em together and led 'em off like convicts. That yard was full of Louisiana and Texas slave buyers mos' all the time. None of the niggers wanted to be sold to Louisiana, 'cause that's where they beat 'em till the hide was raw, and salted 'em and beat 'em some more.

"Course us slaves of white folks what lived in town wasn't treated like they was on most plantations. Massa Nat and Missy Julia was good to us and most the folks we was hired out to was good to us. Lynchburg was full of pattyrollers, jus' like the country, though, and they had a fenced in whippin' post there in town and the pattyrollers sho' put it on a nigger iffen they cotch him without a pass.

"After war broke, Lee, you know General Lee himself, come to Lynchburg and had a campground there and it look like 'nother town. The 'federates had a scrimmage with the Yankees 'bout two miles out from Lynchburg, and after surrender General Wilcox and a big company of Yankees come there. De camp was clost to a big college there in Lynchburg and they throwed up a big breastworks out the other side the college. I never seed it till after surrender, 'cause us wasn't 'lowed to go out there. Gen. Shumaker was commander of the 'Federate artillery and kilt the first Yankee that come to Lynchburg. They drilled the college boys, too, there in town. I didn't know till after surrender what they drilled them for, 'cause the white folks didn't talk the war 'mongst us.

"Bout a year after the Yankees come to Lynchburg they moved the cullud free school out to Lee's Camp and met in one of the barracks and had four white teachers from the north, and that school run sev'ral years after surrender.

"Lots of 'Federate sojers passed through Lynchburg goin' to Petersburg. Once some Yankee sojers come through clost by and there was a scrimmage 'tween the two armies, but it didn't last long. Gen. Wilcox had a standin' army in Lynchburg after the war, when the Yankees took things over, but everything was peaceful and quiet then.

"After surrender a man calls a meetin' of all the slaves in the fairgrounds and tells us we's free. We wasn't promised anything. We jus' had to do the best we could. But I heared lots of slaves what lived on farms say they's promised forty acres and a mule but they never did git it. We had to go to work for whatever they'd pay us, and we didn't have nothing and no place to go when we was turned loose, but down the street and road. When I left the Terry's I worked in a tobacco factory for a dollar a week and that was big money to me. Mammy worked too and we managed somehow to live.

"After I married I started farmin', but since I got too old I live round with my chillen. I has two sons and a boy what I raised. One boy lives clost to Jacksonville and the other in the Sabine bottom and the boy what I raised lives at Henderson. I been gittin' $10.00 pension since January this year. (1937)

"I never fool round with politics much. I's voted a few times, but most the time I don't. I leaves that for folks what knows politics. I says this, the young niggers ain't bein' raised like we was. Most of them don't have no manners or no moral self-respect.

"I don't 'lieve much in hants but I's heared my wife call my name. She's been dead four years. If you crave to see your dead folks, you'll never see them, but if you don't think 'bout them they'll come back sometime.