accordingly.

In the meanwhile, Miss Martha Berry had married Mr. Mitchell and taken
me to live with her. I had never been taught to work, as playing with
the babies had been my sole occupation; therefore, when Mrs. Mitchell
commanded me to do the weekly washing and ironing, I had no more idea
how it was to be done than Mrs. Mitchell herself. But I made the
effort to do what she required, and my failure would have been amusing
had it not been so appalling. In those days filtering was unknown and
the many ways of clearing water were to me an unsolved riddle. I never
had to do it, so it never concerned me how the clothes were ever
washed clean.

As the Mississippi water was even muddier than now, the results of my
washing can be better imagined than described. After soaking and
boiling the clothes in its earthy depths, for a couple of days, in
vain attempt to get them clean, and rinsing through several waters, I
found the clothes were getting darker and darker, until they nearly
approximated my own color. In my despair, I frantically rushed to my
mother and sobbed out my troubles on her kindly breast. So in the
morning, before the white people had arisen, a friend of my mother
came to the house and washed out the clothes. During all this time,
Mrs. Mitchell was scolding vigorously, saying over and over again,
"Lucy, you do not want to work, you are a lazy, good-for-nothing
nigger!" I was angry at being called a nigger, and replied, "You don't
know nothing, yourself, about it, and you expect a poor ignorant girl
to know more than you do yourself; if you had any feeling you would
get somebody to teach me, and then I'd do well enough."

She then gave me a wrapper to do up, and told me if I ruined that as I