.4.	429




filled • de legs an ‚ arriis wid ca rn an ‚~ slung i t over dere saddles an‘ rode ~away • Yes ‚ de Yankees freed ~ us but dey~ le±“ nuthin‘ ~or us to live on. Dey give us freedom but dey took nios ‚ everything an ‚ lef ‚ us mithin ‚ to eat, nUth1~i‘ to live on.

	~‘We lived in Wake County all de time. I did not git only to the third grade in school. Sister Mary Eliza got to de second grade. Father could write a little, niother couldn‘t. Couldn‘t go to school tcept when it wus too wet to work. Work, work, work, thirty acres in cötton an‘ cawn, cawn plowed till de 15th of August, plow, plow, plow hard ground, bad ground. Nine girls ~i‘ one boy wo rkin ‚ from sun to sun . W~r mo the r had twenty~thr e e ehi ilun. She w~is just as smart as she could be, worked in de field till just awhile before she died. She been dead ‘bout twenty years. My father been dead ‘bout ten years. He died right here in Raleigh with me ‚ at 121 corner Mark an‘ BJ..edsoe Street.

	IIII ye had a hard time i‘ all my life • I am ‚ t able to wo rk now but I do e s all I can • I have place s to work a little every day for my white folks. I aiu gwine t~ work long as I ~ kin . ~r mother an‘ father said dey had go od niarsters an‘ dey were e razy ‚ b out ~ em . some time s