"Freedom was a singsong every which way when I knowed anything. My
father's master, Isaac Farmer, had a big farm and a whole world of land.
He told the slaves all of them were free. He told his brother's slaves,
'After you have made this crop, bring your wives and children here
because I am able to take care of them.' He had a smokehouse full of
meat and other things. He told my father that after this crop is
gathered, to fetch his wife and children to him (Isaac Farmer), because
Sharpe might not be able to feed and shelter and take care of them all.
So my father brought us to Isaac Farmer's farm.
"I never did anything but devilment the whole second year of freedom. I
was large enough to take water in the field but I didn't have to do
that. There were so many of them there that one could do what he
pleased. The next year I worked because they had thinned out. The first
year come during the surrender. They cared for Sharpe's crop. The next
year they took Isaac Farmer's invitation and stayed with him. The third
year many of them went other places, but my father and my mother and
brothers and sisters stayed with Isaac Farmer for awhile.
"As time went on, I farmed with success myself.
"I stayed in North Carolina a long time. I had a wife and children in
North Carolina. Later on, I went to Louisiana and stayed there one year
and made one crop. Then I came here with my wife and children. I don't
know how long I been here. We came up here when the high water was. That
was the biggest high water they had. I worked on the levee and farmed.
The first year we came here, we farmed. I lived out in the country then.