My brothers were already free. I don't know how
Miss Polly came to tell me I was free. But my brothers would see me and
tell me to run away and come on home and they would protect me, but I
was afraid to try it. Finally Miss Polly found that she couldn't keep me
any longer and she come and told me I was free. But I thought that she
was fooling me and just wanted to sell me to the speculators.
Family
"My mother was the mother of twenty children and I am the mother of
eighteen. My youngest is forty-five. I don't know whether any of my
mother's children is living now or not. I left them that didn't join the
militia in Hempstead County fifty-seven years ago. Them that joined the
militia went off. I don't know nothin' about them. I have two girls
living that I know about. I had two boys went to France and I never
heard nothin' 'bout what happened to them. Nothing--not a word. Red
Cross has hunted 'em. Police Mitchell hunted 'em--police Mitchell in
Little Rock. But I ain't heard nothin' 'bout 'em.
Work
"The first work I did was nursing and after that I was water toter. I
reckon I was about seven or eight years old when I first began to nurse.
I could barely lift the baby.
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