A white man remembers slavery in the Shenandoah Valley

I was wondering if I could interest the present generation by giving them a little of the history of antebellum days of slavery and how some things were done in by-gone days – things that I know did really happen. Now all I shall tell of will be done without doing violence to the truth for I hate a prevaricator. When I was quite a boy scarcely in my teens, I was on the Pike near Marksville one day in the fall of the year, when I came up with a big negro man driving a four-horse team and I soon got in conversation with him while he made some adjustments to the harness, when he said to me, ‘I sho’ do wish it was Chrismus’ and I asked him why? He replied, ‘Caus’ de white folks always gives us flour bread at Chrismus’ and now just think how many…