Oklahoma Writers‘ Project
-6~. 86
	I been wa1kin~a‘oout all evening/ it seem like ‚ and I come to a little town with jest a few houses. I see a nigger man and. ask him whar I can git something to eat, and. I say I got fifty dollars.

	“What you doing wid fifty dollars, child? lYhere you belong at, anyhow?“ He ask me, and I tell him I belong to Master John Deeson, but I is running away. I explain that I jest bound. out to Mr. John, but Dr. Alexander my- real master, and than that man tell me the first time I 1~oweß. it that I amt a slave no morel

	That man Deeson never did tell me, and his wife never did!

	~ell, dat man asked nie about the fifty dollars, and then I f oimd. out that it was jest fifty cents!

	I cantt begin to tell about all the hard. times I had working for something to eat and roaming around. after that. I dontt 1~iow why I never did try to git back up aroimd Hazelh~rst and hunt up my pappy and m~y, but I reckon I was j e st ignorant and. didZLt t know how to go ab out it . inyways I never did see them no more.

	~	In about three years or a little over I met Bryce Draper on a farm in Missi s sippi and. we was married. Hi s mammy 1~ad had. a harder t ime than I had. She bad five children by a man that b elong t o her mast er ‚ Mr . Bryce and. al— ready named one of the boys — that my husband ~ Bryce after him, and. then he take her in and~ sell her off away from all her children!

	One was jest a little baby, and the master • give it laudantim, but it clidn1 t di e ‚ and. he sold her off and lied and said she was a young gi ri and. didXLt t have no husband., ~ cause the man what bo~ht ~ her ‚ said. he ‚ dIdnt t want to btiy no woman and. take her away from a family. That new master namé was Draper.

	The last year of the War Mr . Draper die ‚ and. his wife already dead., a~ he ~tve all bis farm to his two slaves and. set them free. One o~ them