SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

they would steal anything they wanted* The police came by here and ran
them once* But that didn 9 t do no good*
"Once somebody stole an automatic shotgun* They stole a colt one
time* They stole all my clothes and pawned them to a whiskey dealer* He
got sent to the pen for selling whiskey, but I didn v t get my clothes*
They come in the yard and steal ray potatoes, collards, turnips, ochre
(okra ?), and so on* I lay there in the bed and see them, but I can't stop
them* ill I can do Is to holler, f You better go on and let them things
alone*' Ever since the last war, I haven't been able to work* I am bare-
feeted and naked now on account of not bein 1 able to support myself*
"I just come out of the hospital* I been too sick even to work in my
garden* After I come home I taken a backaet but I am still staying here*
I am just here on the mercies of the people* I don't get nothing but what
the people give me* I don't get no moddities nor nothin' from the Govern-
ment*
*I ain't never been able to get no help from the Government• Long
time ago, I went down to the place and asked for help and they told me that
since I was alone, I oughta be able to help myself* They gimme a ticket
for twenty meals and told me by the time I ate them up, they might have
something else they could do for me* I told them I couldn't go back and
forth to git the meals* I have the ticket now* I couldn't git to the
place to use it none, so I keep it for a keepsake* It is f round here
somewheres or other* I was past the pension age* I ain't been able to do
no steady work since the war* I was too old for the war—-the World
rtar*
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