Ex~.slave stories	p~g~ Three
(Tezas)



	UAfter work at nights there wasn‘ t much sett in~ ‚ round; you‘ d. fall into bed and. go to sleep. On Saturday night they dldn‘ git together, they would je~~ sing at their own houses. Oh, yes‘m, I tmember ~eza singin‘ t ~.1n ‚ nigger, run, ~ but ~ it‘ s too far back for me to tmember those other songs. They would. raise up a song when they was pickin‘ cotton, but I don1 ‘member much about those songs.

	“My old boss, I~m beim‘ to give him praise, he treated. his nig— gez‘s right . Re zaade ‚ em work, though, ~nd he whipped ‚ em, too • But he fed. good, too. We had. rabbits and. posswns once In awhile. Hardly ever any g~e, but you mitt git a deer sometImes. ~

	“Let tem keteli rou with a gun or a piece of paper with writ int Ort lt ~nd he ‚ d. whip you like everything. Some of the si ay~ s ‚ 1f they ever did. git a piece of paper, they would keep lt and learn a few words. Bat they didnt wan.t you t o know nothin ‚ ‚ that ‚ s what ‚ nothin ~ bat work. You would think they was goin‘ to kill you, he would whip you so if he cwight you with a piece of paper, You couldn‘ ~ havenothin‘ but a pick and axe and
	     grubbint hoe.	~
	UWe never got to pla~r none.	Our boss hlr~d. us out lots of times.

know what he got for us . We farmed, cut wood, grabbed ‚ anything. . I sheep and I picked cotton.

“We got up early, you betcha. Yo~i would be out there by time you quit when tt was dark. They tasked us. They would give us

of cotton to bring in and you would git lt ‚ and if you better, or you would git it tomorrow, or your back would git lt from soaeone else ‚ zaaybe et ea]. it from the ir Sacks,
		I don‘
	~	herded



could see and you

~	200 or 300 pou.nds didn‘ git it, you.

git it. Or you‘d
¼T‘ ~ ~ ~	. .s3-
~. ‚ ~ . . ~ ~ . .