"Dat fix me wid dat triflin’ nigger, and Mr. Sam Broady, what’s a lawyer, he got me a ’vorcement and gin me back my fust name, Leslie. Now I’s t’rough wid marrying. My chillun done all gone and got married, and I come back here whar I come from. ’Twix’ here and Brantley, is de place.
"How old I is? I was five year old, come de Surrender—how old dat make me? Sebenty-seben? Dat’s right and I be sebenty-eight dis time nex’ year. How I know I be living dis time nex’ year? ’Cose, I will be living! I always notice dat when I lives t’rough March, I lives de res’ of de year, and ain’t March jes’ now gone, huh?
"How de way wais’ ironed suit you, Missy?"
*Interview with Dellie Lewis* —_Mary A. Poole, Mobile, Alabama_
"To begin at de beginnin’, white folks," said Dellie Lewis, "I was bawn on de plantation of Winston Hunter at Sunflower in Washington County, Alabama. It’s on de Southern Railroad. De fus’ thing dat I remembers was when de Gran’ Trunk Railroad cut dere right of way through near Sunflower. Dey had a chain gang of prisoners dat warn’t slaves aworkin’ on de road, an’ me an’ anudder little nigger gal was sont wid big cans of buttermilk to sell ’em. One day a handsome white gent’man rode to our house an’ axe me fo’ a drink of cool water. He was de fo’man on de road. Jus’ as soon as I handed it to him he done fell offen his hoss on de groun’. I run to de Mistis an’ she got some of de niggers ’roun’ de place to ca’ay de gent’man to de big house, an’ do you know it, white folks, dat man, he neber open his eyes again! He keppa callin’ de Mistis his mammy, but he neber open his eyes to see dat she warn’t his mammy. He died a little later wid a conjested chill.
"Den I remembers one of de Alabama River floods, dat swep’ ober de lan’ an’ washed away lots of de food. De gover’ment sont some supplies of meat, meal an’ ’lasses. De barrels was marked U.S. an’ one nigger, bein’ tired of waitin’ an’ bein’ powerful hongry tol’ us dat de U.S. on de barrel meant Us, so us commence’ to eat. When de oberseer come to gib us de meat an’ ’lasses, us be done et it all up.
"Us slaves useta git up at dawn; de oberseer blowed a cow hawn to call us to work. De Hunter slaves was ’lowed to go avisitin’ udder slaves atter work hours an’ on Sundays, an’ iffen we was to meet a pattyroller, an’ he axe us whar we f’um an’ who we b’long to all us had to say was we’s Hunter niggers; an’ dat pattyroller didn’t do nothin’, caze de Hunter niggers warn’t neber whupped by no pattyroller. Some niggers when dey was kotched eben dough dey warn’t Hunter niggers, dey’d say it jus’ de same, caze dem pattyrollers was always ’fraid to fool ’long wid a Hunter nigger. Massa Hunter, he was somp’n’.