school, and learned to read and write and figure."

"The farm land was nearly all broke up by ox teams, using about six oxen
on a plow. In Missouri we lived near the Santa Fe trail, and the
settlers traveling on the trail used oxen, and some of them used cows.
The cows seem to stand the road better than the oxen and also gave some
milk. The travelers usually aimed to reach the prairie States in the
spring, so they could have grass for their oxen and horses during the
summer."

"I have lived here ever since I came here. I was married when I was
about thirty years old. I married a slave girl from Georgia. Back in
Missouri, if a slave wanted to marry a woman on another plantation he
had to ask the master, and if both masters agreed they were married. The
man stayed at his owners, and the wife at her owners. He could go to see
her on Saturday night and Sunday. Sometimes only every two weeks. If a
man was a big strong man, neighboring plantation owners would ask him to
come over and see his gals, hoping that he might want to marry one of
them, but if a Negro was a small man he was not cared for as a husband,
as they valued their slaves as only for what they could do, just like
they would horses. When they were married and if they had children they
belonged to the man who owned the woman. Osceola is where the saying
originated, 'I'm from Missouri, show me.' After the war the smart guys
came through and talked the people into voting bonds, but there was no
railroad built and most counties paid their bonds, but the county in
which Osceola stands refused to pay for their bonds because there was
no railroad built, and they told the collectors to 'show me the railroad
and we will pay,' and that is where 'show me' originated."

"My wife died when we had three children. She had had to work hard all