Ex—~1ave Stories	Page Two	G?
(Texas)





	“Massa have hu,tiner‘ s of acres . You could waLk ~11 c1~r ~‘jc3. you never git offen his 1~ia‘. An‘ h~ hav~e gran‘ tarnitu.re end~ other things in d~e . I kin remember dem ‚ ‚ cause I us~ ~ t o he ‘p ‘round de house, ru.n errands and fan Mis‘ Katie and. sich. I tmembers chairs with silk coverin‘s on 1ein and. dere was de gran‘ lights, big 1~znps with de roses on de shades. And eve‘:~where de floors with rugs and de rugs was pretty, dey wasu‘ like dese thin rues you. sees nowadays. No, ma‘am, dey has bi~ flowers on ~ p~ de feets sinks in ‘ems I uset e r lie down on one of dein ru gs in M t s ~ Kat ~ s r 00m when she ‚ B asleep and I kin stop fannin. ‚

	°Massa Puckett was tol‘able good to ne slaves. ~e has clothes made of homespun what de nigger women weaved, and de little boys wo‘ lon~-tai1 shirts, with no pants till they‘s grown. Massa raised sheep an~ dey make us wool clothes for winter, buSt we has no shoes~

	“De white folks didn‘ lam us read and. write but dey was good to us ~ cep‘ when some nig~~rs try to rim away and den dey whips ‚ em hard. 1~Te has plenty to ~at and. has prayer meetin!s with s~ngin‘ and sho~tin1 ‚ and we chiliwis played marbles and juzrp de rope.

	“After freedom come all lef‘ but me‘cause Missus 2~3~ she have

me bcmn‘ to her till I git my age. But I‘s res‘l~ss one night and my sister, Geor~r Ann, conic see me, t~nd I run off with her, but dey never comes after me. I was scart dey would, ‘cause I ‘membered ‘bout our neighbor, oie Means, axid his slave, Sylvia, and she r~in away and was in le woods ‚ and he‘ d git on de hos s ‚ take de dogs and. set ~ em on her, end let dem bite her end tear her clothes.