gits nothin‘ from them, and I don‘t expect nothin‘ neither. Boas, a nigger‘s kinfolks is woree than a stranger to them; they thinks and acts for theirselves and no one else • I knows I ‚ ~ a nigger and I tries to know my place. If white folks had drapped us long time ago, us would now be next to de roviri‘ beasts of de woods. blavery was hard I knows but it had to be., it seem lok. They tells me they eats each other in Africa. Us don‘t do dat and you knows dat is a heap to na.

	ttUs had plenty to eat in slavery time. It.wasn‘t de best but it filled us ~p and give us strength ‘nough to work. Marster would buy a years rations on de first of every year and ~when he git it, he would havo some cooked and woul‘l set down and eat a meal of it. He would tell us it di&n‘t hurt him, so it wontt hurt us. Dats de kind of food us slaves had to eat all de year. Of course, us got a heap of vegetables and fruits in de sunimer season, but sich as dat didn‘t do to work on, j_n de long summer days.

	“Marster was good, in a way, to his slaves but dat overseer of his name John Parker, was mean to us sometimes. He was good to some and bad to others • He strung us up when he done de whippin‘ • ~ got many whippints on.‘count of her short temper. 1~~hen she got mad, she would talk back to de overseer, and dat would make him madder than anything else she could do.

	t1Marster had over twenty grown slaves all de time. He bought and sold them whenever he wanted to • It was sad times to see mother and chillun separated. I‘s seen de slave speculator out de little nigger ehillim with keen leather whips, ‘cause they‘d cry and ran after de wagon dat was takin‘ their inaniinies away after they was sold.

	“De overseer was poor white folks, if date what you is ~