MI~OURI
HÂNNI~AL
EX-~~&~AVE STORIES
	wILI!~L;~	i~i~i~c~	Page 2 .	Q f)
	—‚-—-~ — ~- —	.—		Lit.)








	“I ‘member one day when de master was gone, us darkies thought we would have a party. I guess de master knowed we was going to have one, ‘cause dat night, when we was all having a good time, my sister said to me, tBill, over dere is old mas— ter Sam. ‚ He had dressed up to look like us and see what we was up to, Master Sen didn‘t do anything to us dat time ‘cause he had too good a time hisseif.

	“At th‘e~ age of thirteen my sister was bonded out to some man who was awful mean, she was a bad girl, too. After we were freed she told me all. about her old master. She said, ‘One Christmas my master was drunk and I went to wish hirn a merry Christmas and get some candy. He hit at me and I ducked and run ‘round de house so fast I burnt de grass ‘round dat house and I know dere ain‘t no grass growing dere yeti‘

	“When we was freed our master didn‘t give us nothing, but some clothes and five dollars. He told us we could stay if we wanted to, but we was so glad to be free dat we all left him.

He was a good man though.

	‘Turin‘ de war we could not leave de master‘s house to go to‘deneighbors without a pass. If we didn‘t have a pass de

paddyrollers would get us e4d kill us or take us away.