I done all the
sewin' for her family.
"I never went to no school but Mrs. Shaw tried to teach me and she
slapped my jaws many a day bout my book.
"I married when I was fifteen just fore the war ended and I forgot
everything I ever learned--yes ma'm! I been married four times and
they're all dead. I never married when any of em was livin' like a heap
of colored folks did.
"The Yankees come within fifty miles of where we was livin' and then
they burned the bridge and turned back. White folks never told us what
the war was for but a old German man used to read the paper at the
table--every battle they'd fight and when the Yankees would whip. Oh
them was times then. If I could remember I could tell you a heap of
things but my mind's gone from me.
"Old master had about a hundred head of hands and old mistress had a
cousin had five hundred.
"White folks was good to me. My father was the carriage driver and old
mistress used to carry me to church with her every Sunday.
"I never seen no Ku Klux but I lived where they was, in Mississippi.
That was a Ku Klux state. Yes ma'm.
"I remember when General Lee come to Winchester you could hear the
horses' feet a mile away, it so cold.
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