Everything was stripedy ’cause Mammy like to make it fancy.
Smith because he didn’t raise no cotton, but he had a few sheep and we had wool-mix for winter. My aunt done de carding and spinning and my mammy done de weaving and cutting and sewing, and my pappy could make cowhide shoes wid wooden pegs.
We even had brown sugar and cane molasses most of de time before de war. Master Joe was sure a good provider, and we always had plenty of corn pone, sow belly and greens, sweet potatoes, cow peas and cane molasses. I didn’t know what “sell” meant and I ast Pappy, “Is he going to bring ’em back when he git through selling them?” I never did see no money neither, until time of de war or a little before. One time old Master and another man come and took some calves off and Pappy say old Master taking dem off to sell. I had as a good blase-faced horse for dat. We had about twenty calves and I would take dem out and grase ’em while some grown-up Negro was greasing de cows so as to keep de cows milk. I never did have much of a job, jest tending de calves mostly. When crop was laid by de slaves jest work ’round at dis and dat and keep tol’able busy. Up at five o’clock and back in sometimes about de middle of de evening, long before sundown, unless they was a crop to git in before it rain or something like dat. They was so many of us for dat little field we never did have to work hard. Mails cost big money and old Master’s blacksmith wouldn’t make none ‘cepting a few for old Master now and den, so we used wooden dowais to put things together. No nails inmone of dem nor in de chairs and tables. At night dem trundles was jest all over de floor, and in de morning we shove dem back under de big beds to git dem out’n de may. We had home-made wooden beds wid rope springs, and de little ones slept on trundle beds dat was home made too.
Us slaves lived in log cabins dat only had one room and no windows so we kept de doors open most of de time. The Big House was a double log wid a big hall and a stone chimney but no porches, wid two rooms at each end, one top side of de other. I got a pass and went to see dem sometimes, and dey was both treated mighty fine. I had two brothers, Silas and George, dat belong to Mr. Dey was both raised ’round Webber’s Falls somewhere. Pappy’s name was Caesar Sheppard and Mammy’s name was Easter. and something growing on dat place winter and summer. We git three or four crops of different things out of dat farm every year. Dey only had two families of slaves wid about twenty in all, and dey only worked about fifty acres, so we sure did work every foot of it good. She inherit about half a dozen slaws, and say dey was her own and old Master can’t sell one unless she give him leave to do it. Old Mistress was small and mighty pretty too, and she was only half Cherokee. My mammy was a Crossland Negro before she come to belong to Master Joe and marry my pappy, and I think she come wid old Mistress and belong to her. He had black eyes and mustache but his hair was iron gray, and everybody liked him because he was so good-natured and kind. Master’s name was Joe Sheppard, and he was a Cherokee Indian. This website is developed as a part of the world's largest public domain archive, PICRYL.Old Master tell me I was borned in November 1852, at de old home place about five miles east of Webbers Falls, mebbe kind of northeast, not far from de east bank of de Illinois River. law and are therefore in the public domain. The Library provides Congress, the federal government and the American people with a rich, diverse and enduring source of knowledge to inform, inspire and engage them and support their intellectual and creative endeavors.ĭisclaimer: A work of the Library of Congress is "a work prepared by an officer or employee" of the federal government "as part of that person's official duties." In general, under section 105 of the Copyright Act, such works are not entitled to domestic copyright protection under U.S.
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