bound to pick up chickens and eggs effen he kin, no matter how much he
done eat! He jus' can't help it. Effen a nigger ain't busy he gwine to
git into mischief!

"Now and then slaves 'ud run away and go in the woods and dig dens and
live in 'em. Sometimes they runned away on 'count of cruel treatment,
but most of the time they runned away kazen they jus' didn't want to
wuk, and wanted to laze around for a spell. The marsters allus put the
dogs atter 'em and git 'em back. They had black and brown dogs called
'nigger hounds' what waren't used for nothin' but to track down niggers.

"They waren't no such place as a jail whar we was. Effen a nigger done
sumpin' disorderly they jus' natcherly tuk a lash to 'im. I ain't never
seed no nigger in chains twel long atter freedom done come when I seed
'em on the chain gangs.

"The overseer woke us up at sunrise--leas'n they called it sunrise! We
would finish our vittles and be in the fields ready for wuk befo' we
seed any sun! We laid off wuk at sunset and they didn't drive us hard.
Leas'wise, they didn' on our plantation. I done heard they was moughty
hard on 'em on other plantations. My marster never did 'low his niggers
to wuk atter sundown. My employer, I means my marster, didn't have no
bell. He had 'em blow bugles to wake up his hands and to call 'em from
the fields. Sometimes the overseer blowed it. Mistess done larned the
cook to count the clock, but none of the rest of our niggers could count
the clock.

"I never knowed Marster to sell but one slave and he jus' had bought her
from the market at New Orleans. She say it lonesome off on the
plantation and axed Marster for to sell her to folkses livin' in town.