"Dr. Polk had a fine horse. He came riding through the field and said,
'All you all niggers are free now. You can stay here and work for me or
you can go to the next field and work.'
"I had an old aunt that they used to make set on a log. She jumped off
that log and ran down the field to the quarters shouting and hollering.
"The people all said, 'Nancy's free; they ain't no ants biting her
today.' She'd been setting on that log one year. She wouldn't do no kind
of work and they make her set there all day and let the ants bite her.
"Big Niggers"
"They used to call my folks 'big niggers.' Papa used to get things off a
steamboat. One day he brought a big demi-john home and ordered all the
people not to touch it. One day when he went out, I went in it. I had to
see what it was. I drunk some of it and when he came home he said to me,
'You've been in that demi-john.' I said, 'No, I haven't.' But he said,
'Yes, you have; I can tell by the way you look.' And then I told him the
truth.
"He would get shoes, calico goods, coffee, sugar, and a whole lot of
other things. Anything he wanted, he would get. That he didn't, he would
ask him to bring the next trip.
"It was a Union gunboat, and ran under the water. You could see the
smoke. The white people said, 'That boat's goin' to carry some of these
niggers away from here one of these days.'
"And sure enough, it did carry one away.