But one day that
overseer had my pappy whipped for sompin he never done, and pappy hit
him.
So after that, he sent pappy down to New Orleans to be sold. He said he
would liked to kill pappy, but he didn't dare 'cause he didn't owned
him. Pappy was old. Every auction sale, all the young niggers be sold;
everybody pass old pappy by. After a long time--oh, maybe five
years--one day they ax pappy--"Are you got some white folks back in
Arkansas?" He telled them the Williams white folks in Camden on the
Ouachita. Theys white. After while theys send pappy home. Miss, I tells
you, nobody never seen sech a home coming. Old Miss and the young white
folks gathered round and hugged my old black pappy when he come home;
they cry on his shoulder, so glad to git him back. That's what them
Williams folks thought of their slaves. Yes ma'am.
Old Miss was name Miss 'liza. She skeered to stay by herself after old
master died. I was took to be her companion. Every day she wanted me to
bresh her long hair and bathe her feet in cool water; she said I was
gentle and didn't never hurt her. One day I was a standing by the window
and I seen smoke--blue smoke a rising over beyond a woods. I heerd
cannons a-booming and axed her what was it.
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