the commodities--no grease to cook with.

"We never had no trouble much when I was coming along. My mars was a
pretty good old man. He didn't allow no overseer to whip his slaves. The
overseer couldn't whip my old mother anyhow because she was a kind of
bully and she would git back in a corner with a hoe and dare him in. And
he wouldn't go in neither.

"My grandmother had three or four sons. One was name Nels Crump, another
was named Miles and another was named Henry and another Jim. She had two
or three more but I can't think of them. They died before I was old
enough to know anything. Then she had two or three daughters. One was
named Lottie. She had another one but I can't think of her name. I was
so little. All of them are dead now. All of my people are dead but me.
They are trying to find a sister of mine, but I ain't found her yet. She
oughter be down here by Forrest City somewheres. But there ain't nobody
here that I know about but me. And the way they're carryin' them now I
ain't goin' to be here long. All of them people you hear me talk about,
they're supposed to be dead.

"I was born in 1858. At least the old man told me that. I mean my father
of course. The first thing I knowed anything about was picking cotton. I
was a little bitty old fellow with a little sack hangin' at my side. I
was pickin' beside my mother. They would grab us sometimes when we
didn't pick right. Shake us and pull our ears.

"I didn't know anything about sellin' and buying. I never was sold.

"The next thing I remember was being told I was free. My daddy said old
mars told them they were free. I didn't hear him tell it myself. They