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Oklahoma Writers‘ Project
block. Jest like if a slave had. any portly finé looking children they‘d sell them chillun jest like selling cattle. I dithitt see this, jest heerd it.

	After freedom, when I was old. enough then to work in the field, we 1 ived. on. Mr • Mart is p~jntat ion • Vie worked. awful hard in the fi elds • Lawd. yes‘mi I‘ve heard ‘bout shucking up de corn, but give me dem cotton pickings. Pry‘d. pick out all ~e crop of cotton in one day. The women would. cook and. de rnen‘d pick the cotton, I mean on dem big cotton ~ickin~s. Some would work for they meals. Then after dey‘d gather all de cro:os, deytd give big dances, drink whiskey, an~i jest cut up sur~min terrible. ~Te didntt 1~iow anything ‘bout holi~ c~ays. ~

	I‘ve heard my husbnn~i t~1~ ‘bout “Raw head a~t bloody bones.“ Said whenever dey mothers v:nnteCi t~ scnre tem to make ~em be good dey‘d tell ‘em dat a man was outside de ö.oor and asked her if ~ hold his head while he fixed his back bone. I dontt bel~ve in voodooing, and I don‘t believe in hants. I used to believe in~oth of ‘em ~‘hen I was young.

	I married Jako ~3rid~es. ~t~e had. a ordinary wedding. The preacher married us and we had a license. ~e bave two sons gvown living here. My husband told. me that in slavery if your ~Iaster told you to live with yo‘~r brother, you had. to live with him. My fatherts mother and dad was first cousins.

	I can ‘member my husband telling me he was hauling lumber from Jeff er— son where the saw mill was and it was cold that night, and when they got half— way back it snowed, and. he stopped with. an old cullud family, and he said way in the night, a knock come at de door ——woke tem up, and it was an old. cullud man, and. he said dis old man coinnience inquiring, trying to find out who dey people was and dey told him best dey could remember, and bless de Lawcl, ~ fore dey finished talking de found out dis old cullud man and. de other cullud woman ant man dat was married was all brothers and sisters, and. he told his brother