didn't think anything about it. When the old people died, and they left
small orphan children, the slaves would raise the children. My young
master was raised like this, he has written to me several times, since I
have been out here in Kansas, but the last time I wrote, I have had no
reply, so I suppose he was dead."

"When anyone died, they used to bury the body at least six feet under
the ground. There wasn't such a thing as a cemetery then, they were just
buried right on the plantation, usually close to the house. They would
put the body in a wagon, and walk to where to bury the person, and they
would sing all of the way."

"The slaves used to dance or go to the prayer meeting to pass their
time. There were also festivals we went to, during the Christmas
vacation. There was always a big celebration on Christmas. We worked
until Christmas Eve and from that time until New Year's we had a
vacation. We had no such thing as Thanksgiving, we had never heard of
such a thing."

"In August when it was the hottest we always had a vacation after our
crops were all laid by. That was the time when we usually had several
picnics, barbecues or anything we wanted to do to pass our time away."

"After the war was over, and my father, brother and uncle had gone to
war, it left my mother alone practically. My mother had always been a
cook, and that was all she knew, and after the war she got her freedom,
she and me, I was seven or eight years old, and my brother was fourteen,
and my sister was about sixteen. My mother didn't know what to do, and I
guess we looked kind of pitiful, finally my master said that we could
stay and work for him a year, people worked by the year then. We stayed