"The cooks and my mother stayed in the white folks' yard. They weren't
in the quarters. My mother was seamstress and she was right in the house
all the day long sewing. The children like me and my sister, they used
us 'round the house and yard for whatever we could do. They didn't never
whip none of my father's children. If we done something they thought we
ought to been whipped for, they would tell father to whip us, and if he
wanted to, he would; and if he didn't want to, he wouldn't. They made a
big difference for some reason.