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. t Oklahoma Writerst Project	...3-.





Next we‘d. take it to the bench and. scrape or Dlesht it with knives. It was then tut in a tight cabinet and. smoked with oak wood. for about 24 hours. Smoking loosened the skin. Wetcl then take it out and nth it to soften it. It was blacked and. oiled and it was ready to be made into shoes. It took nearly a year to ßet a green hid~e macle into shoes. Tiiian‘ t no wonder we had to go barefooted.

	Sometime s I ‚ d work in the wood. shop ‚ dre s sing wagon spoke s ‚

iiade spokes with a plane, by hand on a bench.

	.	I didn‘t haire much work to do before i wa~ 15 except to nm errands. Oneof my jobs was to take corn to the mill to be ground into meal. Some one ~iou1d put my sack of corn on the ifl1 s back and. help me up and ~ d. ride to the mill and nave it ground and they‘d load me back on and ltd ~o back home.

	I remember once my meal fell off and I waited. and. waited for some~ bod.y to come by and. help me. I ~ot tired waiting so I toted the sack to a big log and laid it acrost it. I led my mi.ile 4o the log and. after working hard. for a long time I managed to get it on his back. I climbed up a~nd jest as we started off the ~u1e jumped and. I fell off and pulled the sack off with me. I couldntt do nothing but wait and finally old Master came after me. He 1‘~iowed. something was wrong.

	Old i~~aster was good. to all of his slaves but ~is overseers had. orders to make texn work. He fed tem good. and took good. keer of tern and. never made tern work 5.ffen they was sick or even feltjbad.. They was two things old. Master jest would.ntt ~bide and. dat was for a slave to be sassy or lazy.

Sometime s i f dey wouldnt t work or slipped. off de farm d.ey would. whip ~ em. He didn‘t whip often. Colored. overseers was worse to whip than white ones, but

~	Master allus said, “Hadn~t you all rather have a nigger overseer than a white

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L one? I dont t ~want to whi te man over my niggers . „ I ‚ ye seen the overseer whip
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