I was a purty big sized girl by then and had to go to work to help
pappy. A man name Captain Hodge, a northerner, got a plantation down the
river. He wanted to raise cotton but didn't know how and had to get
colored folks to help him. A lot of us niggers from the barracks was
sent to pick. We got $1.25 a hundred pounds. What did I do with my
money? Is you asking me that? Bless your soul, honey, I never seen that
money hardly long enough to git it home. In them days chilluns worked
for their folks. I toted mine home to pappy and he got us what we had to
have. That's the way it was. We picked cotton all fall and winter, and
went to school after picking was over.
When I got nearly growd, we moved on this very ground you is a setting
on. Pappy had a five year lease,--do you know what that was, I
don't--but anyhow, they told him he could have all the ground he could
clear and work for five years and it wouldn't cost him nothing. He built
a log house and put in a orchard. Next year he had a big garden and sold
vegables. Lord, miss, them white ladies wouldn't buy from nobody but
pappy. They'd wait till he got there with his fresh beans and roasting
ears. When he got more land broke out, he raised cotton and corn and
made it right good.
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