*Interview with Cornelia Robinson* —_Preston Klein, Opelika, Alabama_
"One time I ’members a storm us had. I calls it a harricane; but it was really de Yankees comin’ through."
Quaint, little Cornelia Robinson was anxious to give all the facts she could remember about slavery days; but she was only about four years old during the latter days of that period, and must depend a great deal on what has been told her.
"Chile, dem Yankees come through an’ cleaned out de smokehouse; even lef’ de lard bucket as clean as yo’ hand. Ol’ Marster tuk his bes’ horses an’ mules to de big swamp, an’ de Yankees couldn’t fin’ ’em. But dey tore up everything dey couldn’t take wid dem. Dey poured all de syrup out an’ it run down de road lak water.
"One pore little nigger boy was so skeered dat when he went out to git up de cows an’ when he couldn’t fin’ some of ’em, he laid down in a hollow stump an’ nearly froze to death. Dey had to thaw him out in de branch, but he was powerful sick. He war’nt no ’count for nothin’ atter dat.
"I ’members dat Ol’ Mistus saved all her jewels an’ sech frum de Yankees. She brung ’em out to de nigger cabins an’ hid ’em amongst us."
Cornelia, forever smiling, wears her gray hair in two short braids down the back. She says her father and mother were George and Harriett Yancey, who belonged first to a Mrs. Baugh and who were later sold to a Dr. Trammell, of near Lafayette. Her brothers and sisters were Charlie, Willie, Albert and Ann.
[Illustration: _Cornelia Robinson, Opelika, Alabama_]
"I ’members de high, four-poster beds us useter sometimes sleep on," she said. "I was so little dat I had to crawl into ’em wid de help of a stool. I ’members dat de mud fireplaces of early times was far back, deep an’ wide. All de little niggers was fed milk an’ bread, wid de bread crumbled in. Us also had pot licker an’ greens.
"Our clothes was muslin an’ calico for de hot weather; an’ den in winter us had linty cloth, part wool an’ part cotton, homespun. Us raised de sheep, too, but us didn’t wear no clothes hardly in hot weather.
"Us sho’ did have a good marster an’ mistis. Dey give us all de clothes an’ food us needed an’ gived us medicine. Us wore asafetida an’ pennies aroun’ our necks to help us not to git sick.