The pigs rooted the leaves all about in day and back up in the corners
at night. It was ditched all around. It didn't get very muddy. Rattle
snakes was bad in the mountains. I used to tote water--one bucketful on
my head and one bucketful in each hand. We used wooden buckets. It was
lot of fun to hunt guinea nests and turkey nests. When other little
children come visiting that is what we would do. We didn't set around
and listen at the grown folks. We toted up rocks and then they made rock
rows [terraces] and rock fences about the yard and garden. They looked
so pretty. Some of them would be white, some gray, sometimes it would be
mixed. They walled wells with rocks too. All we done or knowed was work.
When we got tired there was places to set and rest. The men made plough
stocks and hoe handles and worked at the blacksmith shop in snowy
weather. I used to pick up literd [HW: lightwood] knots and pile them in
piles along the road so they could take them to the house to burn. They
made a good light and kindling wood.

"They didn't whoop Grandma but she whooped me a plenty.

"After the war some white folks would tell Grandma one thing and some
others tell her something else. She kept me and cooked right on. I
didn't know what freedom was. Seemed like most of them I knowed didn't
know what to do. Most of the slaves left the white folks where I was
raised. It took a long time to ever get fixed. Some of them died, some
went to the cities, some up North, some come to new country. I married
and come to Fredonia, Arkansas in 1889. I had been married since I was a
young girl. But as I was saying the slaves was still hunting a better
place and more freedom. The young folks is still hunting a better place
and more freedom. Grandma learnt me to set down and be content. We have
done better out here than we could done in North Carolina but I don't
believe in so much rambling.