"Don't you remember the promise that you made,
To my old dying mother's request?
That I never should be sold,
Not for silver or for gold.
While the sun rose from the East to the West?

"And it hadn't been a year,
The grass had not grown over her grave.
I was advertised for sale.
And I would have been in jail,
If I had not crossed the deep, dancing waves.

"I'm upon the Northern banks
And beneath the Lion's paw,
And he'll growl if you come near the shore.

"The slaves left the plantation because they were sold and their
children were sold. Sometimes their masters were mean and cranky.

"The slaves used to get together in their cabins and tell one another
the news in the evening. They visited, the same as anybody else.
Evenings, Mamma did the washing and ironing and cooked for my father.

"When the slaves got sick, the other slaves generally looked after them.
They had white doctors, who took care of the families, and they looked
after the slaves, too, but the slaves looked after each other when they
got sick.

"I remember in the Civil War, how the soldiers went away. I seen them
all go to war. Lots of colored folks went. That was the time we were