"Before the war, we lived in a old log house. It had one window, one
door, and one room. Colored people didn't have no two or three-room
houses before the war. I'll tell you that right now. All the furniture
we had was bed stools and quilts. 'Course we had them old stools that pa
made. We kept food right there in the house where we was in one corner.
We didn't have no drawers--nothing like that. The white folks fed us.
They give us as much as they thought we ought to have. Every Saturday
night you would go to the smokehouse and get your meat and meal and your
molasses. Didn't get no flour, no coffee, no sugar. Pa was an ox driver
and when he would go to Rodney to carry cotton, he would buy sugar and
coffee for himself. You see, they would slip a little something and make
a little money off it. Like they was goin' to Rodney tomorrow, they
would slip and kill a couple of hogs and carry them along with them.
That was the only way they could get a little money. My pa's main work
was shoemaking, but he worked in the field too. He was a driver chiefly
when he was out in the field. He hoed and plowed. He was the leader of
the gang. He never got a chance to make no money for hisself before the
war. Nope, the colored people didn't have no money 'tall lessen they
slipped and got it.