Giles Smith

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My name am Giles Smith, 'cause my pappy was born on the Smith plantation and I took his name. I's born at Union Springs, in Alabama and Major Hardway owned me and 'bout a hundred other slaves. But he gave me to Mary, his daughter, when I's only a few months old and had to be fed on a bottle, 'cause she am jus' married to Massa Miles. She told me how she carried me home in her arms. She say I was so li'l she have a hard time to make me eat out the bottle, and I put up a good fight so she nearly took me back.

I don't 'member the start of the war, but de endin' I does. Massa Miles called all us together and told us we's free and it give us all de jitters. He treated all us fine and nobody wanted to go. He and Missy am de best folks de Lawd could make. I stayed till I was sixteen years old.

It am years after freedom Missy Mary say to me what massa allus say, 'If the nigger won't follow orders by kind treatin', sich nigger am wrong in the head and not worth keepin'. He didn't have to rush us. We'd just dig in and do the work. One time Massa clearin' some land and it am gittin' late for breakin' the ground. Us allus have Saturday afternoon and Sunday off. Old Jerry says to us, 'Tell yous what us do,—go to the clearin' this afternoon and Sunday and finish for the Massa. That sho' make him glad.'

Saturday noon came and nobody tells the massa but go to that clearin' and sing while us work, cuttin' bresh and grubbin' stomps and burnin' bresh. Us sing

'Hi, ho, ug, hi, ho, ug.
De sharp bit, de strong arm,
Hi, ho, ug, hi, ho, ug,
Dis tree am done 'fore us warm.'

De massa come out and his mouth am slippin' all over he face and he say, 'What this all mean? Why you workin' Saturday afternoon?'

Old Jerry am a funny cuss and he say, 'Massa, O, massa, please don't whop us for cuttin' down yous trees.'

I's gwine whop you with the chicken stew,' Massa say. And for Sunday dinner dere am chicken stew with noodles and peach cobbler.

So I stays with massa and after I's fifteen he pays me $2.00 the month, and course I gits my eats and my clothes, too. When I gits the first two I don't know what to do, 'cause it the first money I ever had. Missy make the propulation to keep the money and buy for me and teach me 'bout it. There ain't much to buy, 'cause we make nearly everything right there. Even the tobaccy am made. They put honey 'twixt the leaves and put a pile of it 'twixt two boards with weights. It am left for a month and that am a man's tobaccy. A weaklin' better stay off that kind tobaccy.

First I works in the field and then am massa's coachman. But when I's 'bout sixteen I gits a idea to go off somewheres for myself. I hears 'bout Mr. Frank Talbot, whom am takin' some niggers to Texas and I goes with him to the Brazos River bottom, and works there two years. I's lonesome for massa and missy and if I'd been clost enough, I'd sho' gone back to the old plantation. So after two years I quits and goes to work for Mr. Winfield Scott down in Brownwood, in the gin, for seventeen years.

Well, shortly after I gits to Brownwood I meets a yaller gal and after dat I don't care to go back to Alabama so hard. I's married to Dee Smith on December the eighteenth, in 1880, and us live together many years. She died six years ago. Us have six chillen but I don't know where one of them are now. They all forgit their father in his old age! They not so young, either.

My woman could write a little so she write missy for me, and she write back and wish us luck and if we ever wants to come back to the old home we is welcome. Us write back' forth with her. Finally, us git the letter what say she sick, and then awful low. That 'bout twenty-five years after I marries. That am too much for me, and I catches the next train back to Alabama but I gits there too late. She am dead, and I never has forgive myself, 'cause I don't go back befo' she die, like she ask us to, lots of times.

I comes here fifteen years ago and here I be. The last six year I can't work in the packin' plants no more. I's too old. Anything I can find to do I does, but it ain't much no more.

The worst grief I's had, am to think I didn't go see missy 'fore she die. I's never forgave myself for that.