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"By der goodness o'God I done lived ter waltz on der citadel green and march down a ile o' soldiers in blue, in der arms o' me husban', and over me haid de bay'nets shined." "I done lived up all my days and some o' dem whut mighta b'longed ter somebody else is dey'd done right in der sight o' God." "How I know I so old?" "I got documents ter prove it."

Maybe I's de only one still livin' dat were grown an' right dere an' seen it happen. I aint scared now nothin' 'ud happen to me for tellin' Mr. Currie'd see to dat I jus' aint never tol'. Dem dat b'longed to my race were scared to tell. Maybe it were all for de bes'. Dat were a long time ago.

Dat's how I knows I'll be one hund'ed years old if I lives 'til de turn o' de year. I was born in Jefferson County 'tween Hamburg an' Union Church. De plantation joined de Whitney place an' de Montgomery place, too. I b'longed to Marse Jeems Stowers. I don't rightly 'member how many acres my Marster owned, but 'twas a big plantation wid eighty or ninety head o' grown folks workin' it.

He would let us go a-courtin' on the other plantations near anytime we liked, if we were good, and if we found somebody we wanted to marry, and she was on a plantation that b'longed to one of his kin folks or a friend, he would swap a slave so that the husband and wife could be together.

"Oh, Elspeth, ain't they lovely?" she sighed. "Don't they make you feel like heaven? Wouldn't you like a great, big bunch of them under your nose always? I wonder why the folks who live there don't give them away. I should if they b'longed to me. Think how many people would be glad to get them. May I go over in the field to play?

"He's all de boy I'se got, Marster," rejoined the negress, with an indifference to the matter of justice which had led others of her colour into those subterranean ways where abstract principles are not. "You ain' done furgot 'im, Marster," she added piteously. "He 'uz born jes two mont's atter Miss Lindy turnt me outer hyer en he's jes ez w'ite ez ef'n he b'longed ter w'ite folks."

She didn't b'long ter my ol' moster: she b'longed ter Squire Minor. I tuck a wife off'en our plantation. She's goin' ter ax her moster ter sell her an' the childun to Mos' Hawton, and I's waitin' ter fin' out ef he'll sell 'um. I ain't goin' ter cou't no other gal tell I fin's out." "Yer hopes he'll sell her, don't yer?" Little Lizay asked with an anxious heart.

Ef I knowed whar to find em, deys some my white folkes lib in dis town. Seem like I can 'member dey names. I b'longed to Marster Billy Cain, and was raised on his farm in Campbell county, Tennessee. Oh, 'bout six, seven mile from Jacksboro. Wish I could go back dar some time. Ain been dar sence me an Moss married an live eight, ten or some more years in a log cabin he built for us.

When he got de banjo 'bout paid foh, dat time he took a whole nes'ful to onc't an' de birds what it b'longed to saw what he war a-doin' an' gib him a piece o' dere mind, an' folled him 'round all day an' sat on de roof ob his quarters an' talked all night, 'an tole him to bring back dem Mockers or dey'd tell; an' Sambo war skeered an' wanted to put de birds back an' den he didn't like to.

"Now I've given that ter ye, I feel some better. I've felt like a thief ever since I found it, an' knew who it b'longed ter. They's a note in the little box, an' when ye've puzzled over the flourishes done in fancy ink, ye kin read that that necklace was presented ter Ma'm'selle Nannette by, I forgot who, fer her beautiful dancin'." Nancy looked as if she listened in a dream.