*Giles Smith, 79, now residing at 3107 Blanchard St., Fort Worth, Texas,
was born a slave of Major Hardway, on a plantation near Union Springs,
Alabama. The Major gave Giles to his daughter when he was an infant and
he never saw his parents again. In 1874 Frank Talbot brought Giles to
Texas, and he worked on the farm two years. He then went to Brownwood
and worked in a gin seventeen years. In 1908 he moved to Fort Worth and
worked for a packing company. Old age led to his discharge in 1931 and
he has since worked at any odd jobs he could find.*
"My name am Giles Smith, 'cause my pappy was born on the Smith
plantation and I took his name. I's born at Union Springs, in Alabama
and Major Hardway owned me and 'bout a hundred other slaves. But he gave
me to Mary, his daughter, when I's only a few months old and had to be
fed on a bottle, 'cause she am jus' married to Massa Miles. She told me
how she carried me home in her arms. She say I was so li'l she have a
hard time to make me eat out the bottle, and I put up a good fight so
she nearly took me back.
"I don't 'member the start of the war, but de endin' I does. Massa Miles
called all us together and told us we's free and it give us all de
jitters. He treated all us fine and nobody wanted to go. He and Missy am
de best folks de Lawd could make. I stayed till I was sixteen years old.
"It am years after freedom Missy Mary say to me what massa allus say,
'If the nigger won't follow orders by kind treatin', sich nigger am
wrong in the head and not worth keepin'. He didn't have to rush us. We'd
just dig in and do the work. One time Massa clearin' some land and it am
gittin' late for breakin' the ground. Us allus have Saturday afternoon
and Sunday off. Old Jerry says to us, 'Tell yous what us do,--go to the
clearin' this afternoon and Sunday and finish for the Massa. That sho'
make him glad.'
"Saturday noon came and nobody tells the massa but go to that clearin'
and sing while us work, cuttin' bresh and grubbin' stomps and burnin'
bresh. Us sing
"'Hi, ho, ug, hi, ho, ug.
De sharp bit, de strong arm,
Hi, ho, ug, hi, ho, ug,
Dis tree am done 'fore us warm.'
"De massa come out and his mouth am slippin' all over he face and he
say, 'What this all mean? Why you workin' Saturday afternoon?'
"Old Jerry am a funny cuss and he say, 'Massa, O, massa, please don't
whop us for cuttin' down yous trees.'
"I's gwine whop you with the chicken stew,' Massa say. And for Sunday
dinner dere am chicken stew with noodles and peach cobbler.
"So I stays with massa and after I's fifteen he pays me $2.00 the month,
and course I gits my eats and my clothes, too. When I gits the first two
I don't know what to do, 'cause it the first money I ever had. Missy
make the propulation to keep the money and buy for me and teach me 'bout
it. There ain't much to buy, 'cause we make nearly everything right
there. Even the tobaccy am made. They put honey 'twixt the leaves and
put a pile of it 'twixt two boards with weights. It am left for a month
and that am a man's tobaccy. A weaklin' better stay off that kind
tobaccy.
"First I works in the field and then am massa's coachman. But when I's
'bout sixteen I gits a idea to go off somewheres for myself. I hears
'bout Mr. Frank Talbot, whom am takin' some niggers to Texas and I goes
with him to the Brazos River bottom, and works there two years. I's
lonesome for massa and missy and if I'd been clost enough, I'd sho' gone
back to the old plantation. So after two years I quits and goes to work
for Mr. Winfield Scott down in Brownwood, in the gin, for seventeen
years.
"Well, shortly after I gits to Brownwood I meets a yaller gal and after
dat I don't care to go back to Alabama so hard. I's married to Dee Smith
on December the eighteenth, in 1880, and us live together many years.
She died six years ago. Us have six chillen but I don't know where one
of them are now. They all forgit their father in his old age! They not
so young, either.
[Illustration: _Giles Smith_]
"My woman could write a little so she write missy for me, and she write
back and wish us luck and if we ever wants to come back to the old home
we is welcome. Us write back' forth with her. Finally, us git the letter
what say she sick, and then awful low. That 'bout twenty-five years
after I marries. That am too much for me, and I catches the next train
back to Alabama but I gits there too late. She am dead, and I never has
forgive myself, 'cause I don't go back befo' she die, like she ask us
to, lots of times.
"I comes here fifteen years ago and here I be. The last six year I can't
work in the packin' plants no more. I's too old. Anything I can find to
do I does, but it ain't much no more.
"The worst grief I's had, am to think I didn't go see missy 'fore she
die. I's never forgave myself for that."