Niggers have to have meat to eat or he get weak. White folks didn't have
no meat, no flour.
The folks was after some people and I run off and kept goin till I
took up with some people. The white folks brought them to
Tennessee--Covington--I come too. They come in wagons. My father, he got
shot and I never seed him no mo. He lived on another farm fo de war. I
lived wid them white folks till bout nine years and I married. My old
man wanted to come to dis new country. Heard so much talk how fine it
was. Then I had run across my brother. He followed me. One brother was
killed in the war somehow. My brother liked Memphis an he stayed there.
We come on the train. I never did like no city.
We farmed bout, cleared land. Never got much fo the hard work we done.
The white man done learned how to figure the black folks out of what was
made cept a bare living.
I could read a little and write. He could too. We went to school a
little in Tennessee.
When we got so we not able to work hard he come to town and carpentered,
right here, and I cooked fo Mr. Hopkins seven years and fo Mr. Gus
Thweatt and fo Mr. Nick Thweatt. We got a little ahead then by the
hardest. I carried my money right here [bag on a string tied around her
waist].
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