*Hagar Lewis, tall and erect at 82 years of age, lives at 4313 Rosa St.,
El Paso, Texas. She was born a slave of the Martin family and was given
with her mother and family to Mary Martin, when she married John M.
McFarland. They lived near Tyler, Smith Co., Texas. When freed she
remained with the McFarlands until she married A. Lewis and moved to San
Antonio, Texas. Widowed early, she raised two sons. One, chief
electrical engineer with the U.S. government, lives in New York City. He
provides for his aged mother.*
[HW: Illegible]
"I was born Jan. 12th, 1855. My first owners was the Martins, and when
their daughter, Mary, married, I was give to her. My mama lived to 112
years old. She had sixteen children. I was the baby.
"Missus Mary McFarland, my mother's missus and mine, taught us children
with her own; learned us how to read and write. She treated us just like
we were her children. We had very strict leaders, my mother and Missus
Mary. She'd say, 'Mammy Lize (my mother), 'you'll have to come and whop
Oscar and Hagar, they's fightin!' Mammy Lize would say, 'No, I won't
whop 'em, I'll just punish 'em.' And we'd have to stand with our backs
to each other. My missus never did much whoppin'.
"We lived in cabins made of logs and chinked with mud mortar. We had
beds that had only one leg; they fit in each corner of the walls. They
was strong, stout. We could jump on 'em and have lots of fun. We didn'
stay in quarters much. The cabins was near a creek where willows grew
and we'd make stick horses out of 'em. We called it our horse lot. On
the farm was a spring that threw water high, and we'd go fishing in a
big lake on one corner of the farm. Marster owned half a league, maybe
more.
"I was 12 years old when freed. I can remember the way my marster come
home from the war. The oldest son, Oscar, and I was out in the yard, and
I saw marster first, comin' down the road, and I hollered and screamed,
'O, Oscar, Marse John's a-comin! Marse John's a-comin' home!' We stayed
on with them 'till they all died off but Oscar.
"We never changed our name 'till after the Civil War. Then Marse John
said, 'Mammy Lize, you gotta choose a name.' He carried us into Tyler to
a bureau or something. Mammy Lize say, 'I'm going to keep the name
McFarland. I ain't got no other name.'
"My father was a slave from another farm. My mother was the cook. She
cooked it all in the same place for white folks and us. We ate the same,
when the white folks was finished. They's a big light bread oven in the
yard of the big house and in front of the quarters, under a big tree.
That one baked the pies. The cabins had a big fireplace wider than that
piano there. They'd hang meat and sausage and dry them in the fireplace.
Cut holes in ham and hang them there. Had big hogsheads filled up with
flour, corn and wheat.
"Some pore niggers were half starved. They belonged to other people.
Missus Mary would call them in to feed 'em, see 'em outside the fence
pickin' up scraps. They'd call out at night, 'Marse John, Marse John.'
They's afraid to come in daytime. Marse John'd say, 'What's the matter
now?' They'd say, 'I'se hongry.' He'd say, 'Come in and git it.' He'd
cure lots of meat, for we'd hear 'em hollerin' at night when they'd beat
the pore niggers for beggin' or stealin', or some crime.
"Marse John would saddle up Old Charlie and go see. He had a big shot
gun across his lap. We'd hear that ole bull whip just a poppin'. They'd
turn 'em loose when Marse John got after 'em. He prosecuted some
marsters for beatin' the slaves. He knew they was half feedin' 'em. One
time he let us go see where they'd drug two niggers to death with oxen.
For stealin' or somethin'. I can't say we were treated bad, 'cause I'd
tell a story. I've always been treated good by whites, but many of the
niggers was killed. They'd say bad words to the bosses and they'd shoot
'em. We'd ask Miss Mary why did they kill old Uncle so and so, and Miss
Mary would say, 'I don't know. It's not right to say when you don't
know.' I'm glad to see slavery over.
"When I was turned loose Miss Mary was training me and sister to do
handwork, knittin' and such. Mama wouldn't let us dance, didn't want any
rough children. Miss Mary'd say, when I'd get sleepy, 'Owl eyes, ain't
you sleepy?' I'd say, 'No, ma'am, anything you want us to do?' I cried
to sleep in the big house with Miss Mary and the children, 'cause my
sister Belle did. Said she's goin' to turn white 'cause she stayed with
the white folks, and I wanted to turn white, too.
"Miss Mary'd make our Sunday dresses. My mother put colored thread in
woven material and they was pretty. We had plenty of clothes. Miss Mary
saw to that. They paid my mother for every child she had that was big
enough to work, and Marse John saw that others did the same.
"Some whites had a dark hole in the ground, a 'dungeon,' they called it,
to put their slaves in. They'd carry 'em bread and water once a day.
I'se afraid of the hole, they'd tell me the devil was in that hole.
[Illustration: _Hagar Lewis_]
"We set traps for 'possum, coons and squirrels. We used to have big
sport ridin' goats. One near busted me wide open. Miss Mary's brother
put me on it, and they punished him good for it. He didn't get to play
for a long time. And we had an old buck sheep. He'd keep Oscar and I up
on the oak patch fence all the time.
"We'd watch the doodle bugs build their houses. We'd sing, 'Doodle,
Doodle, your house burned down.' Those things would come up out of their
holes just a-shakin'.
"One game I remember was, 'Skip frog, Skip frog, Answer your Mother,
she's callin' you, you, you.' We'd stand in a circle and one would be
skip frog. We'd slap our hands and skip frog would be hoppin' just like
frogs do. Oh, I wish I could call them times back again. I'd go back
tomorrow. But I'm tryin' to live so I can meet 'em once again."