~x.s1ave Stories (Texas)
Paie Pour
good, old-time tligion,and us ~‘4. 1 go to shoutin‘ i~nd has a good time. Dis gen‘ration too dig‘fied to have de old-time ‘ligion.

	“When baptizin‘ comes off, lt almost like goin‘ to de ci reus. Pèople come from all over ~nd d.ey all singin‘ songe and everybody take dere lunch and have de good time. Massa Cole went one time and den he git sick, and next summer he die. Missy Cole, she moves to Runt sville, in Alabama. But she leave me on de plantation, ~cause I~ big and. stout den. She takes my mother to 000k arid dat de last time I ever seed. my mother. Missy Colc~ buys de fine house in Huntsville my mother tells ‘ne to be good and do all de overseer tells-me, I told her goodbye and she never did git to come beck to see me, and I never seed. her arid my brother and sister ‘gain. I dontt know whether dey ara sold or not.

	III	thinks to myself, dat Mr. Anderson, de overseer, he‘ll give me dat cat—o.nine tails de first chance he ~ts, but makes up my mind. he won‘t git de chance, ‘cause I‘s gwlne run off de first chance I gits. I didn‘t know how to git out o±~ dere, but I~s gwine north where dere ain‘t no slaveowners. In a year or so dere am ‘nother overseez~, Mr. S~ndson, and he give me de log house and de gnl to do my cookin‘ ~nd sich. Dere am war talk and we ‘gins gwine. to de field earlier and stayin‘ later. Corn am haul off, cotton am haul off, nawgs and cattle am rounded up and ha~u1 off and things ‘gins lookin‘ bad. De war am on, litt us don‘t see none of it. Bat ‘stead of eatin‘ cornbread,

us eats bread out of kaffir corn ~id maize. “e raises lots of okra and. dey~

	~	say it gwtne be parch and grind to make coffee for ~hite ±‘olks. Dat didn‘t : ‚ look goöd éither, Dat winter, ‘stead of kuhn‘ three or four hundred hawgs
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