29G
	Ex~sl&Ve Stories	Page Two
(Texas)







put him sway. nice and loaded up and. went baok to Virginia, but the home waS nailed up and farm lying out, ~nd it took them mOst a year to find they folks. The mother and.on~ gai was dead, so they come back ~nd lived and died.
	here in Texas.	.

	“Marse Will was one more good man b~.ck in Virgini~. He never got mad ~ o r whipp cd a si ave ~ ~ He aflus had plenty to eat ‚ with 1 ‚ 200 acres ‚ Imt aft er ?‚ we come here ail we had. to eat was what we kilt i~n the woods and cornbread, He planted seven acres in corn, but all he did was hunt d.e~r and squirrels. They was never a nigger what tried t o run off in Texas ‚ ‚ ca~ise this was a good. country, plenty to eat by huntin‘ and not so cold. like in Virginia.

	“Aft.; I was traded off, my new uwst~r w~sn‘t so good to me. He thunk all the time the South would win that war and he treated us mean, His name was Thomas OEreer, He kept tellin‘ us a black nigger never would be free. When it come, he said to us, ‘Well, you black ~ ~ ‚ you are just as free as I ~ia.t He turnt us loose with ~ to eat and mos‘ no clothes, He said if

~	he got up nex‘ mornin‘ and found a nigger on his place, he‘d horsewhip him. It ~ don ~ t know what I ~d. done, but one msr old. Marse Wifl‘ s chillun done

settle close b~r and they let me work for them, and built me a log house

	~	I faraed on halves. They stood good. for all the groceries I buyed that S ~ year, It took Qi I made that y~ear to pay my debts and that‘s the way its ~: .~en ever since0 . . .

“I married Sarah ICeys. We had a home weddin1 and ‘greed. to live together

~	as m~i* wi4 wife. I just goes by her home one day and captu~res her like.

~	~ ~ ~ On ay saddle behind me and tells her she ‚ s i~y wife then.

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