SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

so that everything would be ready when the riding boss would come around*
Cause when he came, it meant move*
The Old Lady at the Big House
"The old lady at the big house took care of the gourds and bowls. The
parents didn f t have nothing to do with them. She fed the children that was
weaned. Mother and daddy didn't have nothing to do with that at noontime
because they was in the field. White folks fed them corn bread and milk.
Up to the big house besides that, she didn't have anything to do except
take care of things around the housef keep the white man's things clean and
do his cooking.
"She never carried the gourds and bowls herself. She just fixed them*
The yard man brought them down to the quarters and we would take them back.
She wash them and scrape them till they was white and thin as paper. They
was always clean.
"She wasn f t related to me. I couldn't call her name to save my life.
Relatives
"We come from Barbour, Alabama with a trainful of people that were
immigrating. We just chartered a train and came, we had so many. Of all
the old people that came here in that time, my aunt is the oldest. You
will find her out on Twenty-fourth Street and Pulaski. She has been my
aunt ever since I can remember. She must be nearly a hundred or more.
Patrollers
"When we had the patrollers it was just like the white man would have
another white man working for him. It was to see that the Negroes went to bed
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