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•to church and etayed th.e biggest portion of the day. No body had torush home. Oy~ our plantation we had general prayer meeting every Wednesday night at church. ‘cRuse SOme of the masters didn‘t like the way‘we slaves carried on we would turn pots down, and tubs to keep the sound from going out. Den we would have a good time, shouting singing and praying just like we pleased. The paddarollers didn‘t pay us much ‘tention cous‘ed they knew how master let us do. Dey would say nasty things ‘bout master ‘cause
he let us do like we did.	.~

	.	We had plenty time to ourselves. Most of the time we spent singing and praying ‘cause master was sich a good Christian and most of us had ‘fessed religion. Evenings we would spin on the old spinning wheel, quilt make clothes, talk, -tell jôkes, and a few had learned to weave a little b~t from MISBUB, We would have candy pulls, from cooked molasses, and sing in the moonlight by the tune of an old banjo picker. Chpllen was mostly seen, not heard, different from youngens of today talking backward and foward cross their ma~ies and pappies. C~llen dat did dat den would git de breath slapped out on ‘em. Your mantes didn‘t have to do it either; any old person would~ and send you home to git another lickin ‚. We slaves had two hours off for dihner, when we could go home and eat before we finished work ‘bout suri down. We amt had no colored overseers to whip us nor no vthite ones. We just went ‘long so and did what we had to, wid out no body watching over us. Every body was just plum crazy ‘bout master. Doing the day you could see hirn strutting down the field like a big turkey gobbler to see how the work was going on. Always had a smile and a joke wid you. F~e allu‘s tell us we wa.s doing fine, even sometimes when we want. We‘d always catch up our work, so he wouldn‘t have to fuss. We loved Misses and the c}~llen so much we wouldn‘t even let ‘em eat hardly. M1$8~5 didn‘t have to do nothing, hardly. Dare was always some of us round the house. ~ .

	‘Bout a year fore we heard ‘bout • freedom, master took sick and the s laves wouldn‘t‘er looked sadder if one of their own youngene had been sick. Dey ‘spected him to die, and he kept calling for some cabbage. Misses finally let me cook him some cabbage ‚ and let him have . some “pot licker“ (the water t he cabbage wie cooked in).