"Dey hid de carriage horses, meat, silver an’ plates. Yankees asked iffen marsa was good, an’ us said yes. Dey searched de smokehouse an’ some scraps no good an’ nothin’ but scrappy horses so dey didn’t bother a thing. Us stayed one year an’ worked on one-eighth farm. The Ku Klux Klan was turrible. One John Lyons would cut off a woman’s breast an’ a man’s ear or thumb.
"Atter I got growed I married Leila Benford at Mr. Lockhart’s house, an’ us had a nice little frolic, wid cake, syrup pudding an’ wine. It was a fine night wid me, ’caze all kissed de bride. Us had fourteen children, jes’ eight living, Minnie, Wade, Robert, Walter, Viola, Joe, Jim and Johnnie, an’ ten grand-chilun.
"I heered Abraham Lincoln speak once at Chicaumaugee Mountain an’ he said ’For people, by people, and through people.’ I always ’membered dat. I jined de church ’caze I got converted."
*Interview with Molly Parker* —_Preston Klein, Opelika, Alabama_
_HE WAS A GOOD OVERSEER AND TREATED SLAVES RIGHT_
Down in lower Lee County I found Molly Parker, an old acquaintance, ailing, and with the wandering mind of the aged. She could find answers to some of my questions, but some she couldn’t get straight. She was just as clean and neat as she had always been, clad in an apron dress that she would call a "Mother Huggard."
Molly is eighty-five years old and lives with her sister Edna in a simple cabin, with a little patch of flowers between it and the field where Edna is still young enough to work. Molly was a housewife’s treasure in the days gone by, but now she is too feeble to do more than work her little patch of flowers.
[Illustration: _Molly Parker, Lee County, Alabama_]
She was born in Virginia but was brought to Alabama when a child and sold to a Mr. Dunn, near Salem. Her mother and father were John and Fanny, the parents of four children, Molly, Edna, Sam and Albert.
"I was a big size housegirl, but I sho’ could work," Molly recalled. "Mr. Digby blowed a big bugle early every morning to get us all up and going by bright light. Mr. Digby was a good overseer and treated all de slaves de best he knew how.
"I married Dick Parker on a Sunday and dey fixed us a big dinner wid more good things to eat, but I was too happy to eat much myself. I ain’t had no chillun of my own, but I ho’ped mammy with hern.