.	3.	49



Mama wasn‘t so big and stouter. ae never tried to get away frœi his owners.

He belong to Sam Ritchie five or six mils, away. I never heard much about them. They had Negro overseers. Papa was a fcxremen, He tanned the cow hides and made shoes for all the hands on. Ritchie ‚ s place, He made our shoes over there too. They said Stevens and Ritchies didn‘t keep bad dogs.

Mistress ~liza Ritchie was a Stevens before she married. Papa never was sold. He said they was good to them. Mama was nwned Eliza too and papa George Ritchie.

	“When freedom was on. papa went to Atlanta and got transportation to Chattanooga. I don ‚ t know why. He met me and meine. She picked me up and ru.n away and met him. We went in a freight box. It had been a soldier‘s hams ~ great big house. We et on the first story out of tin pans. We had ~Nhite beans or peas, crackers and coffee, Meat and wheat and cornbread we never ~raelt at that place. Sœ~ebody ask him how we got there and he showed thera a ticket froeti the Freedrnans bureau in Atlanta. He showed that on the train every now and then. Upstairs they brought out a stack of wool blankets and started the rows of beds. each man took his three as he was nunibered. every night the same one got his own blankets. The ro~ was full of beds and white guards with a guii over his shoulder guarded them all night 1on~. We stayed there a long tine —— nearly a year. They tried to get jobs fast as they could and push ~n out but it was slow work. Mama got a plaöe to cook at ~ Mrs. Crutchfield‘s. She nm a hotel in tom but lived in the Country. We stayed there about a year. Papa was hired somewhere else there.

	“Papa got us on a fana in middle Tennessee after that. We come to Mr.

Hooper‘ s place and share cropped one Year, then we went to share crop for ~eL1s Brothers close to Murfreesboro, I been on the farm all my life since then,