"My father's master was right smart mean to him. It was partly my
father's fault. He wouldn't take no whipping much. If they would get
after him he would run off. Whenever there was anything they wanted him
to do and he didn't go and do it just that minute, they wanted to whip
him. Jus' like a child, you know. He had to move when he was told. If he
didn't do it then he got a whipping. He would run away in the woods and
stay a week or two before he'd come back. Sometimes some of the boys
would see him and they would say to him, 'Old master says for you to
come back home; he ain't goin' to do nothin' to you.' Nobody would go in
the woods and hunt him. Some of them would go in there and get hurt.
"There was some masters that would go in the woods hunting their
niggers. Sometimes they'd carry bloodhounds with them. They never did
run my father with the bloodhounds though.
"My mother's master and mistress was good to her. They never drove her
around. Old man Judge died and left her mistress and she lived a widow
the balance of her life. But she never gave my mother no trouble."