peafowl had a dip in it. Sometimes we had buttermilk and bread in our
bowl, sometimes greens or bones.

Our clothes were little homespun cotton slips, with short sleeves. I
never knew what shoes were until I got big enough to earn them myself.

If a slave man and woman wished to marry, a party would be arranged
some Saturday night among the slaves. The marriage ceremony consisted
of the pair jumping over a stick. If no children were born within a
year or so, the wife was sold.

At New Year's, if there was any debt or mortgage on the plantation,
the extra slaves were taken to Clayton and sold at the court house. In
this way families were separated.

When they were getting recruits for the war, we were allowed to go to
Clayton to see the soldiers.

I remember, at the beginning of the war, two colored men were hung in
Clayton; one, Cæsar King, for killing a blood hound and biting off an
overseer's ear; the other, Dabney Madison, for the murder of his
master. Dabney Madison's master was really shot by a man named
Houston, who was infatuated with Madison's mistress, and who had hired
Madison to make the bullets for him. Houston escaped after the deed,
and the blame fell on Dabney Madison, as he was the only slave of his
master and mistress. The clothes of the two victims were hung on two
pine trees, and no colored person would touch them. Since I have grown
up, I have seen the skeleton of one of these men in the office of a
doctor in Clayton.