Daphne Williams
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"It won't be long 'fore I's sleeping the long sleep. I expect I's about the mos' agreeables person in the county, 'cause I's so old. I's born in Tallahassee, in Florida, but I don' know when. The Herrings used to own me and I took their name. Missus' name was Nancy Herring and the marster was still alive when I's born, but he die when I's a baby. I guess I's about 10 or 12 year old when us come to Texas.
"Dat place where I's born was sho' a place! They have a three-story house with a porch at the front and another at the back. They was posties what stand from one porch floor to the nex' and brace it up. I used to live in the big house, 'cause I's nuss for the white chillen. I didn' stay round with cullud folks a-tall.
"The missus was a widow woman ever since I 'member her. She have two boy and three gal, and that sho' was a lovely house. They have they ownself painted in pictures on the wall, jus' as big as they is. They have them in big frames like gold. And they have big mirrors from the floor to the ceilin'. You could see you ownself walk in them.
"My mother was named Millie and my daddy named Daniel. I don' know how many niggers missus have on the plantation. I was never 'lowed to play with the cullud chillen, but I have two brothers named Abram and Handy and I seed them sometimes. I took care of the white chillen and took 'em to church. Iffen baby git to cryin' I walked round with him, but you better be careful not to let the briar scratch him or he git a scar on him and then they gwinter put a scar on you.
"They give me pretty clothes to wear and make me keep clean and expectable. I wore homespun and gingham dresses, jus' cut straight down. They didn' have no sewin' 'chine. They have a woman to cut out and sew and she do that all day long.
"My white folks have mighty nice company. My missus up on the top. They have nice, fine, intelligen' dishes and table cloth.
"They give us holiday on Christmas and sometimes a whole week. They treat the white chillen and black chillen all good and give 'em whippin' iffen they needs it. When there's disturbance, missus holler, 'You all chillen, come in here to me,' and whip us all, then she know she whip the right one.
"I seed the stars fall. God give me a good eyesight. The sun was shinin' and it was plain daylight and the stars fall jus' like hail, only they never fall all the way to the groun'. They fall so far and then they stop and go out. They stay up in the element all the time. Missus sent for the niggers to come up to the house and pray. All that time the stars was a-comin' through the element. All the darkies, little and big, was a-prayin' on their knees, 'cause they thing the jedgment sho' come then.
"Before us move from Florida us git mos' us goods for clothes from North and South Carolina. The war commence in North Caroline to the good of my recollection. That was six month or a year after us lef' Florida. They was a-tryin' to smuggle it down then. When the missus 'cided come to Texas she sent the niggers on ahead and they done make two crops 'fore us git there. The place was five mile from Woodville. We come to Texas in a boat what's big as a house. When the boat git there I was so 'cited when I seed all the pretty trees. I never mever used to trees, 'cause from where us come was jus' prairie land far's you kin see. No tree round Tallahassee and no hill.
"My mother was cook and when she like to die one time they starts breakin' me in to do the cookin'. Then when she die I was cook and been doing that two, three year when freedom come.
"When they tol' us freedom come us thought they was foolin'. My uncle say we's free and to go and look out for number one. They let us stay awhile, but they 'lowanced us. Iffen us spen' the 'lowance us jus' had to go rustle up something to eat or do without. My daddy was a widow man by then and he stay, 'cause he say he want to see further into the subjec'.
"One time I gwineter see my father and had my baby in my arms, 'cause I done married. I was gwine through the wilderness and I heared something squall like a woman cry. I 'gin walk faster. The squall come again. Something say to me, 'You better run.' The hair commence stand on my head and I walk pretty peart. That squall come again and I run fastes' I knows how. I have that poor little baby carried any way.
When I get to the fence I jump over and sot down. The chillen come running and say, 'Yonder Daphne.' They help me into the house but I's so scart I couldn' tell 'em till near bedtime and then I say I hear squall like woman cryin'. Mister Goolsbee say, 'Daphne, make soun' like you hear,' and I makes a squall, and he say, 'That a panther and iffen he kotched you that would have been the end of you and that baby of yourn what you was totin'.' So 'bout four o' clock in that mornin' he gits 'bout fourteen neighbors and the dawgs and they hunts that rascal and runs him in 'bout 8 or 10 o'clock. A span of mules couldn' pull that rascal, I don' 'lieve. He have the biggest tushes I ever seed with these two eyes. They put him in a pot and bile him and make soap out of the grease. That panther didn' git me or my baby but they got him and made soap out of him."
