Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves | Page 6

use my legs like I used to. If you was caught
without no pass, the Pattyroolers give you five licks. They was licks!
You take a bunch of five to seven Pattyroolers each giving five licks
and the blood flows."
"Old Marster was too old to go to the war. He had one son was a
soldier, but he never come home again. I never seen a soldier till the
war was over and they begin to come back to the farms. We half-grown
niggers had to work the farm, because all the famers had to give,--I
believe it was a tenth--of their crops to help feed the soldiers. So we
didnt know nothing about what was going on, no more than a hog. It
was a long time before we knowed we was free. Then one night Old
Marster come to our house and he say he wants to see us all before
breakfast tomorrow morning and to come on over to his house. He got
something to tell us."
"Next morning we went over there. I was the monkey, always acting
smart. But I believe they liked me better than all of the others. I just
spoke sassy-like and say, "Old Marster, what you got to tell us"? My
mother said, "Shut your mouth fool. He'll whip you!" And Old Marster
say,--"No I wont whip you. Never no more. Sit down thar all of you
and listen to what I got to tell you. I hates to do it but I must. You all
aint my niggers no more. You is free. Just as free as I am. Here I have
raised you all to work for me, and now you are going to leave me. I am
an old man, and I cant get along without you. I dont know what I am
going to do." Well sir, it killed him. He was dead in less than ten
months."
"Everybody left right now, but me and my brother and another fellow.
Old Marster fooled us to believe we was duty-bound to stay with him
till we was all twenty-one. But my brother, that boy was stubborn.
Soon he say he aint going to stay there. And he left. In about a year,
maybe less, he come back and he told me I didnt have to work for Old
Goforth, I was free, sure enough free, and I went with him and he got

me a job railroading. But the work was too hard for me. I couldnt stand
it. So I left there and went to my mother. I had to walk. It was
forty-five miles. I made it in a day. She got me work there where she
worked."
"I remember so well, how the roads was full of folks walking and
walking along when the niggers were freed. Didnt know where they
was going. Just going to see about something else somewhere else.
Meet a body in the road and they ask, 'Where you going'? 'Dont know.'
'What you going to do'? 'Dont know.' And then sometimes we would
meet a white man and he would say, 'How you like to come work on
my farm'? And we say, 'I dont know.' And then maybe he say, "If you
come work for me on my farm, when the crops is in I give you five
bushels of corn, five gallons of molasses, some ham-meat, and all your
clothes and vittals whils you works for me." Alright! That's what I do.
And then something begins to work up here, (touching his forehead
with his fingers) I begins to think and to know things. And I knowed
then I could make a living for my own self, and I never had to be a
slave no more."
"Now, Old Marster Goforth, had four sisters what owned slaves, and
they wasnt mean to them like our Old Marster and Mistress. Some of
the old slaves and their folks are still living on their places right to this
day. But they never dispute none with their brother about how mean he
treat his slaves. And him claiming to be such a Christian! Well, I
reckon he's found out something about slave driving by now. The good
Lord has to get his work in some time. And he'll take care of them low
down Pattyroolers and slave speculators and mean Marsters and
Mistress's. He's took good care of me in the years since I was free'd,
only now, we needs Him again now and then. I just stand up on my two
feet, raise my arms to heaven, and say, 'Lord, help me!' He never fails
me. I asked him this morning, didnt I Lola? Asked him to render help.
We need it. And here you come. Lola, just watch that