A few days later a second visit was made to Melvin. This time he was on the inside of his little cabin and was all alone. He came forward, a broad smile on his face, when he heard familiar voices.
"I been thinkin' 'bout what I told you an' I b'lieve that's 'bout all I 'member," he said.
Then he was asked if he remembered any days when the slaves did not have to work.
"Yes'm," was the reply. "We never worked on Christmas or the Fourth of July. Marster always give us big sacks of fruit an' candy on Christmas an' a barbecue the Fourth of July. We never worked none New Year's Day, neither. We jest sot around an' et chicken, fish an' biscuit. Durin' the week on Wednesday an' Thursday night we had dances an' then they was a lot of fiddlin' an' banjo playin'. We was glad to see days when we never had to work 'cause then we could sleep. It seem like the niggers had to git up soon's they lay down. Marster was good to us but the overseer was mean. He wan't no po' white trash; he was up-to-date but he like to beat on niggers."
When asked if he has been happier since he was freed, he replied:
"In a sense the niggers is better off since freedom come. Ol' Marster was good an' kind but I like to be free to go whar I please. Back then we couldn't go nowhar 'less we had a pass. We don't have no overseer to bother us now. It ain't that I didn't love my Marster but I jest likes to be free. Jest as soon as Marster said I didn't b'long to nobody no more I left an' went to Tallahassee. Mr. Charlie Pearce come an' wanted some hands to work in orange groves an' fish for him so that's what I done. He took a whole crew. While we was down thar Miss Carrie Standard, a white lady, had a school for the colored folks. 'Course, my ol' Miss had done taught me to read an' write out of the old blue back Webster but I had done forgot how. Miss Carrie had 'bout fifteen in her class.
"I stayed in Tallahassee three years an' that's whar I married the first time. I was jest romancin' about an' happened to see Ca'line Harris so I married her. That was a year after the war. We never had no preacher but after we been goin' together for such a long time folks say we married. We married jest like the colored folks does now. When I left Tallahassee I moved to another place in Florida, thirteen mile from Thomasville, Ga. I stay thar 'bout thirty-seven year. My first wife died an' I married another. The second one lived twenty-one year an' I married again. The one what's livin' now is my third one. In 1905 she had a baby that was born with two lower teeth. It never lived but a year. In all, I've had twenty-three chillun. They most all lives in Florida an' I don't know what they doin' or how many chillun they got. I got four gran'-chillun livin' here."