SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

quit. Both them soon livin' wid somebody else. That what
churches fer, to marry in. Heap of em ain't do in 1 it. No
children don't come here tearin* up what I work and have. I
don't let em come in that gate. I have to work so hard in
my old days. I picked cotton. I can, by pickin' hard, make
a dollar a day. I cooked ten years fore I stopped. I cain't
hold up at it. I washed and ironed till the washing machines
ruined that work fer all of us black folks. Silk finery and
washin* machines ruint the black folks.
B Ma named Elsie Langston and Lewis Langston. They took
that name somehow after the old war (Civil War). I reckon it
was her old master's name."
"After I was married and had children I was hard up* I
went to a widow woman had a farm but no men folks. She say,
! If you live here and leave your little children in my yard
and take my big boys and learn em to work, I will cook. On
Saturday you wash and iron.' She took me in that way when my
color wouldn't help me. I stayed there - between Memphis and
Holly Springs.
"I live hard the way I live. I pick cotton when I can't
go hardly. They did give me a little commodity but I lose half
day work if I go up there and wait round. Don't know what they
give me. I don't get a cent of the penshun."
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