"I'm home today 'cause my li'l, old dog is lost and I has to stay 'round to hunt for him. I been goin' every day on the truck to the cotton patches. I don't pick no more, 'count my hands git too tired and begin…

"I was born in slavery and I think them days was better for the niggers than the days we see now. One thing was, I never was cold and hongry when my old master lived, and I has been plenty hongry and cold a lot of times since he is gone. But…

"They's lots I disremembers and they's lots I remembers, like the year the war's over and the fightin' all done with, 'cause that the year I larned to plow and that the time I got married. That's the very year they…

"Course I's born in slavery, ageable as I am. I'm a old time, slavery woman and the way I been through the hackles, I got plenty to say 'bout slavery. Lulu Wilson says she knows they ain't no good in it and they better not…

"I don't know when I was born, 'cause I was taken from my folks when I was a baby, but massa told me I was born in de spring of de year, in 1851. I know I been in dis world a long time, but I has have good white folks. I was born on…

"I axed my old missus when I's borned and she rec'lect I'm eight or nine year old when de freedom war starts. She say she don't make recall de 'xact time, but I takes May for a birthin' time. They's a time when…

"The funny thing 'bout me is, I's a present to the white folks, right off. They's lookin' for my mammy to have a baby and, Gawd bless, I's borned twins, a boy and a girl. When I's six months old, Miss Gusta, my old…