SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

and do things for which she was given old clothes and other lit-
tle things. She would take em and bring em to my mother. As
soon as she had gone, they would take them things away from my
mother, and put em up in the attic and not allow her to wear
thenu They would let the clothes rot and mildew before they'd
let my mother wear them. If my mother left a dish dirty - some-
times there would be butter or flour or something in the dish
that would need to be soaked - they would wait till it was
thoroughly soaked and then make her drink the old dirty dish
water. They'd whip her if she didn't drink it.
"Her other master was named Harrison. He was tolerable
but nothing to bragg on.
"After she was JayjUawked and brought down South, they
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sold her to John Kelly, a man in Arkansas somewhere. She belonged
to John Kelly and his wife when freedom came. John Kelly and his
wife kept her working for them without pay for two years after
she was free. They didn't pay her anything at all. They hardly
gave her anything to eat and wear. They didn't tell her she was
free. She saw colored people going and coming in a way they
wasn't used to, and then she heard her Mistress' youngest daughter
tell her mother, 'You ought to pay Hannah something now because
you know she is free as we are. And you ought to give her some-
thing to eat and wear. 1 The mother said, 'You know I can't do
that hard work; I'm not used to it.' After hearing this my moth-
er talked to the colored people that would pass by and she learned
for shor enough she was free.