"I was born in 1859 down here at Walnut Lake. The man what owned us was Crum Holmes.
"All I can remember was the patrollers and the Ku Klux. I reckon I ought to, I seed 'em. I got skeered and run. I heered 'em talk 'bout how they'd do the folks and we chillun thought they'd do us the same way.
"I 'member hearin' 'em talk 'bout the Yankees—how they'd come through there and how they used to do.
"I guess we had plenty to eat. All I know was when I got ready to eat, I could eat.
"My parents was brought from Tennessee but all the place I know anything about is Walnut Lake.
"I know my mother said I was the cause of her gettin' a lot of whippin's. I'd run off and the boss man whipped her cause she wasn't keepin' me at home. If he didn't whip her, he'd pull her ears.
"When we was comin' up they didn't 'low the chillun to sit around where the old folks was talkin'. And at night when company come in, we chillun had to go to bed out the way. Sometimes I'm glad of it. See so many chillun now gettin' into trouble.
"I never been arrested in my life. Been a witness once or twice—that's the only way I ever been in court. If I'd a been like a lot of 'em, I might a been dead or in the pen.
"In them days, if we did something wrong, anybody could whip us and if we'd go tell our folks we get another whippin'.
"After freedom my parents stayed there and worked by the day. They didn't have no privilege of sellin' the cotton though.
"I didn't start to farm till I was 'bout twelve years old. They started me bustin' out the middles till I learnt how and then they put the plowin' in my hands.
"White people been pretty good to me 'cause I done what they told me.
"I went to school a little 'long about '70. I learnt how to read and kept on till I could write a little.
"I used to vote 'til they stopped us. I used to vote right along, but I stopped foolin' with it. 'Course we can vote in the president election but I got so I couldn't see what ticket I was votin', so I stopped foolin' with it.
"I farmed till 'bout '94, then I worked at the compress and brick work."
"I was born in Jefferson County, Mississippi in 1853. That would make me eighty-six years old. I was born six miles from Fayette—six miles east of Fayette. I was eighty-six years old the eleventh day of September.
"My father's name was Daniel Tims, and my mother's name was Ann Tims. My mother was born in Lexington, Kentucky. Ma's been dead years and years ago, and my father is gone too. My mother's name before she married was ----; she she told it to us all right but I just never can think of it.
"I don't know the name of my mother's master. But my father's master was named Blount Steward. Pa was born on Blount's plantation and Blount bought my ma because they brought her from Kentucky for sale. They had her for sale just like you would sell hogs and mules. Then my father saw her and liked her and married her. She was a slave too.
Master
"Blount Steward was kinder good. He was very well till the war started—the Federal War. Miss Ann went to whip me for nothing.
Whippings
"I was carrying her daughter to school every day except Saturdays and Sundays. One day, Miss Ann was off and I was at the back steps playing and she decided to whip me. I told her I hadn't done nothing but she put my head between her legs and started to beatin' me. And I bit her legs. She lemme loose and hollered. Then she called for William to come and beat me. William was one of the colored slaves. William come to do it. Ma had been peeping out from the kitchen watchin' the whole thing. When William come up to beat me, she came out with a big carving knife and told him, 'That's my child and if you hit him, I'll kill you.'
"Then she sent for Tully to come and whip me, I mean to whip my mother. Tully was my young master. Tully came and said to my mother, 'I know you ain't done nothin' nor your child neither, but I'll have to hit you a few light licks to satisfy ma.'
"Blount come the next day and went down to where pa was making shoes. He said, 'Daniel, you're looking mighty glum.'
"Pa said, 'You'd be lookin' glum too if your wife and chile had done been beat up for nothin'.'
"When he said that, Blount got mad. He snatched up a shoe hammer and hit pa up side the head with it.
"Pa said, 'By God, don't you try it again.'
"Blount didn't hit him again. Pa was ready to fight, and he wasn't sure that he could whip him. Pa said, 'You won't hit me no more.' The war was goin' on then.
Runaways
"The following Sunday night, twelve head of 'em left there. My ma and pa and me and our whole family and some more besides was along. We went from the plantation to Rodney, Mississippi first, trying to get on a steamboat—gunboat. The gunboat wouldn't take us for fear we would get hurt. The war was goin' on then. So we just transferred down the river and went on to Natchez. We went there walking and wading. We was from Sunday night to Sunday night gettin' there. We didn't have no trouble 'sept that the hounds ms runnin' us. But they didn't catch us—they didn't catch none of us. My ma and my pa and my brothers and sisters besides me was all in the crowd; and we all got to Natchez.
"They are all dead and gone to Judgment now but me. I think that I got one sister in Chicago, Illinois. She is my baby sister. I ain't never heard nothing about her bein' dead.
Natchez
"At Natchez, ma didn't do anything. We children didn't do nothin' either there. But pa joined the army. He joined it the next day after he got there. Then I went to work waiting on the sixty-fourth—lemme see—yes, it was the Sixty-Fourth Brass Epaulettes. I was waiting on one of the sergeants. He was a Yankee sergeant. The sergeant's name was Josephus, and the captain of the Company was Lieutenant Knowles. I was with them two years and six months. I never did get hurt. When they went to fight at New Orleans, the captain wouldn't lemme take part in it. He said that I was so brave he was a 'fraid I might get hurt.
"Me and my father were the only ones working in the family at that time. I stayed right in Natchez but my father didn't. My father's first stop was in Bullocks Bar right above Vidalia. That was where his company was stationed first. Lemme see, he went from there to Davis Bend. I wasn't with them. He was in a colored regiment. I was with a white regiment. He left Davis Bend and want to Vicksburg. His next trip was up the Sunflower River. His next trip he went from there up here to De Valls Bluff. That is where he come free. That was the end of the fighting there—right there.
"From there he come back to Rodney. We all want to Davis Bend while pa was there. When he left and went to De Valls Bluff, ma went to Rodney. I stayed with the soldiers two years and a half down there at Natchez. That's as far as I went with them. When they left I stayed.
"I went to Rodney with my mother and stayed with her and the rest of the children till she died. My ma died in 1874. My father died down here in Pine Bluff several years ago. After ma died, pa married another woman. He went back to Pine Bluff and was killed by a train when he was crossing a trestle.
Age and Other Masters
"Blount Steward was the only master any of us ever had, outside of my ma's first master—the one in Kentucky. I don't know anything about them. I was eight years old when the war began and twelve years old when it ended. I must have been older than that because I was twelve years old when I was serving them soldiers. And I had to come away from them before the war was over.
Slave Work
"The first work I ever did in slave time was dining-room service. When I left the dining-room table, I left carrying my young mistress to school six miles from Fayette. They give me to Lela, my young mistress. She was the young girl I was carrying to school when I got the whipping. When ol' mis' was whippin' me, I asked her what she was whipping me for, and she said, 'Nothin', 'cause you're mine, and I can whip you if I want to.' She didn't think that I had done anything to the girl. She was just mad that day, and I was around; so she took it out on me. After that, I never did any more work as a slave, because the whole family ran away about that time. I don't reckon pa would ever have run off if ol' miss hadn't whipped me and if ol' massa hadn't struck him. They rats good till then; but it looked like the war made them mean.
Patrollers, Jayhawkers, Ku Klux, and Ku Klux Klan
"They had pateroles going 'round watching the colored people to keep them from running off. That's all I know 'bout them. I don't remember hearin' anything about the jayhawkers.
"I heard lots 'bout the Ku Klux. They were terrible. The white folks had one another goin' 'round watching and keeping them from runnin' off. The Ku Klux would whip people they caught out. They would whip them just because they could; because they called themselves bosses, because they was white and the colored people was niggers. They didn't do nothin' but just keep the slaves down. It was before the war that I knew 'bout the Ku Klux. There wasn't no difference between the pateroles and the Ku Klux that I knows of. If they'd ketch you, they all would whip you. I don't know nothin' about the Ku Klux Klan after the war. I know they broke them up.
Slave Houses, Furniture, Food, and Work
"Before the war, we lived in a old log house. It had one window, one door, and one room. Colored people didn't have no two or three-room houses before the war. I'll tell you that right now. All the furniture we had was bed stools and quilts. 'Course we had them old stools that pa made. We kept food right there in the house where we was in one corner. We didn't have no drawers—nothing like that. The white folks fed us. They give us as much as they thought we ought to have. Every Saturday night you would go to the smokehouse and get your meat and meal and your molasses. Didn't get no flour, no coffee, no sugar. Pa was an ox driver and when he would go to Rodney to carry cotton, he would buy sugar and coffee for himself. You see, they would slip a little something and make a little money off it. Like they was goin' to Rodney tomorrow, they would slip and kill a couple of hogs and carry them along with them. That was the only way they could get a little money. My pa's main work was shoemaking, but he worked in the field too. He was a driver chiefly when he was out in the field. He hoed and plowed. He was the leader of the gang. He never got a chance to make no money for hisself before the war. Nope, the colored people didn't have no money 'tall lessen they slipped and got it.
Slave Marriages
"Say I wanted this woman for my wife. We would just put down the broom and step over it and we would be married. That is all there was to it before emancipation. Didn't have no matrimony read nor nothing. You were married when you stepped over the broom handle. That was your wife.
A Lincoln Story
"They say Abe Lincoln come down in this part of the country and asked for work. He had his little grip just like you got. The man said, 'Wait till I go to dinner.' Didn't say, 'Come to dinner,' and didn't say nothin' 'bout, 'Have dinner.' Just said, 'Wait till I go eat my dinner.' When he come back, Abe Lincoln was up there looking over his books. He'd done changed his clothes and everything. He had guards with him but they didn't see 'em. That is the story I heard them tell.
What the Slaves Got
"When the slaves got freed, they wasn't expecting to get nothing that I knows of 'cept what they worked for. They weren't spectin' no forty acres and a mule. Who was goin' to give it to 'em? The Rebs? They didn't give 'em nothin' but what they could put on their backs—I mean lashes.
"Blount had stocks that he used to put them in. The stocks had hinges on one side and latches on the other. The nigger would put his head in one hole and his arms through the others, and the old man would eat on the other end. Your feet would be stretched out and you would be layin' on your belly.
"Blount whipped me once because I wouldn't go to the cow barns to get the milk to put in the coffee that morning. I didn't have time. They had given me to Lela, and I had to take her to school. I was 'sponsible if she was late. He had give me to Lela. Next morning with her, and we didn't come back till Friday evening. She went down to her Aunt Leona Harrison's and carried me with her. She was mad because they whipped me when I belonged to her.
"After slavery, we worked by the month on people's plantations. I did that kind of work till after a while the white people got so they rented the colored people land and selled them mules for their work. Then some worked on shares and some rented and worked for theirselves. Right after the war most of the farms were worked on shares. We were lucky to be able to get to work by the month.
Schooling
"I went to school in Natchaz, Mississippi. My teacher came from the North, I suppose. But those I had in Rodney, I know they come from the North. Miss Mary—that's all the name I knowed—and Miss Emma were my teachers in Rodney. They come from Chicago; I never went to school here. I didn't get no farther than the second grade. I stopped school to go work when the teacher went back to Chicago. After that I went to work in the field and made me a living. I hadn't done but a little work in the field helping pa now and then before that.
Marriages
"I married a long time ago in Rodney. Lord, it's been so long ago I couldn't tell you when. I been married four times. They all quit me for other men. I didn't quit none of them.
Present Condition
"I get along tolerably now for an old man. The welfare gives me a little help. But I have to pay five dollars for these two rooms every month. What's more, I got to eat, and I got to have somethin' to wear. Washington won't allow me nothin' for my army service. They say I wasn't regular. I gets eight dollars from the Welfare.
Opinions
"The young people's terrible. They rather go to the penitentiary or the county farm or get killed than to do what is right.
Voting and Vocational Experiences
"I used to vote. I never had no trouble about it.
"They tried to whip me once since freedom, but not about votin'. A man tried to whip me down in Stoneville because another man give me a drink. He tried to cut me with his knife. I knocked him down. I told him I could kill him, but I just didn't want to. While I was swearing out a warrant to get him arrested, he went and got a gun somewheres. He came right on in with his pistol and struck me with it. I knocked him down again, and he was dead for twenty-five minutes. They didn't have to go nowheres to serve the warrant on him. Nobody did anything to me about it.
"I come to Little Rock fifty years ago or more. I farmed as long as I was able. Doctor stopped me when I began to fall out.
"I cooked for Dr. Stone and his wife for ten years in Greenville, Mississippi. Then I come to Pine Bluff on a vacation. The next time they give me a vacation, I stayed away for eleven years. I went to get some money Dr. Stone owed me for some work I had done for him once and he wanted me to come back and cook again. I didn't do that and he died without paying me for the work. He said it was his brother that owed me. But it was him that hired me. I 'tended to some mules for nine months at four dollars a week. I never got but one four dollars. The miles belonged to him and his brother both, but it was him that hired me. It wasn't Captain Stone, his brother. It was him, and I looked to the man that hired me for my money. I didn't have nothing to do with nobody but him. It was him promised to pay me."
Interviewer's Comment
Throughout his story Tims carefully avoided using his first name. Never at any time did he let it slip.
The capture of New Orleans was effected in 1862. If the troop with which he worked took part in the capture, he must have been twelve years old by 1862, and his age must be at least eighty-eight. But this would be inconsistent with his statement that he served Sergeant Josephus for two years and a half. The detachment might have gone to New Orleans later than '62. At any rate, Tims is at least eighty-five, and possibly older. Here again we have a definite conviction of the use of the word Ku Klux before the War. The way he talks of it, the term might have been a colloquial term applied to a jayhawker or a patroller. He doesn't mean Ku Klux Klan when he says Ku Klux.
The Lincoln story is included on my part merely because it is at least legendary material. I don't know what basis of fact it could or might have.
"The Jay Hawkers would travel at night. When they came to a cabin, they would go in and tell them that owned it they wanted something to eat and to get it ready quick. They stopped at one place and went in and ordered their dinner. They et the supper and went away and got sick after they left. They got up the next morning and examined the road and the horse tracks and went on. They all thought something had been given to them, but I don't guess there was. They caught my mother and brought her here and sold her. If they caught a nigger, they would carry him off and sell him. That's how my mother came to Arkansas.
"I don't know what year I was born in. I know the month and the day. It was February tenth. I have kinder kept up with my age. As near as I can figure, I am seventy-three years old. I was 18 in 1884 when I married. I must have been born about 1864, I was brought up under my step father; he was a very mean man. When he took a notion to he'd whip me and mother both.
"My mother was born somewheres in Missouri, but whereabouts I don't know. One of her masters was John Goodet. His wife was named Eva Goodet. He was a very mean man and cruel, and his wife was too. My grandmother belonged to another slaveholder and they would allow her to go to see my mother. She was allowed to work and do things for which she was given old clothes and other little things. She would take em and bring em to my mother. As soon as she had gone, they would take them things away from my mother, and put em up in the attic and not allow her to wear them. They would let the clothes rot and mildew before they'd let my mother wear them. If my mother left a dish dirty—sometimes there would be butter or flour or something in the dish that would need to be soaked—they would wait till it was thoroughly soaked and then make her drink the old dirty dish water. They'd whip her if she didn't drink it.
"Her other master was named Harrison. He was tolerable but nothing to bragg on.
"After she was Jayhawked and brought down South, they sold her to John Kelly, a man in Arkansas somewhere. She belonged to John Kelly and his wife when freedom came. John Kelly and his wife kept her working for them without pay for two years after she was free. They didn't pay her anything at all. They hardly gave her anything to eat and wear. They didn't tell her she was free. She saw colored people going and coming in a way they wasn't used to, and then she heard her Mistress' youngest daughter tell her mother, 'You ought to pay Hannah something now because you know she is free as we are. And you ought to give her something to eat and wear.' The mother said, 'You know I can't do that hard work; I'm not used to it.' After hearing this my mother talked to the colored people that would pass by and she learned for shor enough she was free.
"There was a colored man there that they were keeping too. One Sunday, they were taking him to church and leaving my mother behind. She said to them, 'Well, I will be gone when you come back, so you better leave Bill here this morning.' Her old mistress said to her, 'Yes; and we'll come after you and whip you every step of the way back.' But she went while they were at church and they did not catch her either.
"The Saturday before that she made me a dress out of the tail of an old bonnet and a big red handkerchief. Made waist, sleeves and all out of that old bonnet and handkerchief. She left right after they left for church, and she dressed me up in my new dress. She put the dress on me and went down the road. She didn't know which way to go. She didn't know the way nor which direction to take. She walked and she walked and she walked. Then she would step aside and listen and ask the way.
"It was near night when she found a place to stay. The people out in the yard saw her pass and called to her. It was the youngest daughter of Mrs. Kelly, the one she had overheard telling her mother she ought to set her free and pay her. She stayed with John Kelly's daughter two or three days. I don't know what her name was, only she was a Kelly. Then she got out among the colored people and got to working and got some clothes for herself and me. From then on, she worked and taken care of me.
"From there she went to Pocahontas and worked and stayed there till I was about fifteen years old. Meanwhile, she married in Pocahontas. Then she moved to Newport. When I was fifteen, I married in Newport. My mother supported herself by cooking and washing. Then she got a chance to work on a small boat cooking and doing the boat washing, and there would be weeks that some of the deck hands would have to help her because they would have such a crowd of raftsmen. Sometimes there would be twenty or thirty of them raftsmen—men who would cut the logs and raft them to go and bring them down the river. Then the deck hands would have to help her. I too would have to wash the dishes and help out.
"I went to school in Pocahontas and met my future husband (Travis). I brought many a waiter to serve when they had a crowd. I took Travis to the boat and he was hired to wait on the men. When they had just the crew—Captain, Clerk, Pilot, Engineer, Mate, and it seems there was another one—I waited on the table myself. I help peel the potatoes and turn the meat. When we had that big run, then Mr. Travis and some of the others would come down and help me. The boat carried freight, cotton, and nearly anything might neer that was shipped down to town. Pocahontas was a big shipping place.
"My mother said they used to jump over the broom stick and count that married. The only amusement my mother had was work. I don't know if she knowed there was such a thing as Christmas.
"Mother's little house was a log cabin like all the other slaves had.
"They didn't give her anything much to eat. They was farmers. They raised their own cattle and hogs. The niggers did the same—that is, the niggers raised everything and got a little to eat. They had one nigger man that was around the house and others for the field. They didn't allow the slaves to raise anything for themselves and they didn't give them much.
"The slaves made their own clothes and their own cloth. They would not let the slaves have anything much. To keep them from being stark naked, they'd give them a piece to wear.
"Mama got to see her mother in 1885. When I married she left and went to Missouri and found her sister and half-sister and her mother and brother or cousin. She found her sister's oldest daughter. She was a baby laying in the cradle when mama ran through the field to get away from a young man that wanted to talk to her.
"My grandmother was a full-blooded Indian. Her husband was a French Negro. Nancy Cheatham was her name.
"The Ku Klux never bothered us. They bothered some people about a mile from us. They took out the old man and whipped him. They made his wife get up and dance and she was in a delicate state. They made her get out of bed and dance, and after that they took her and whipped her and beat her, and she was in a delicate state too.
"There was a man there in Black Rock though that stopped them from bothering anybody. He killed one of them. They went to the train. They was raging around there then. He got off the train and they tried to take him to jail. The jail was way out through the woods. He hadn't done anything at all. They just took hold of him to take him to the jail because he had just come into the town. They had tugged him down the road and when they got to the woods, he took out his gun and killed one of them, and the rest left him alone. The man who was killed had a wife and four or five children. They sent the nigger to the penitentiary. He stayed there about a year and come out. That broke up the Ku Klux around Black Rock and Portia. They never seemed to get much enjoyment out of it after that.
"I heard from different ones' talk that a big hogshead full of money was given to the Negroes by the Queen, but they never did get it. I think they said the queen sent that money. I reckon it was Queen Victoria, but I don't know. But the white folks got it and kept it for themselves.
"Didn't nobody have any rights then. They would just put em up on a block and auction them off. The one that give the most he would take em. Didn't nobody have no schooling only white folks. The white children would go to school but they didn't allow her to go.
"Once there was a slave woman. They worked her day and night. She had a little log cabin of her own. The spirit used to come to her at night and tell her if she would follow them she wouldn't have to work all the rest of her life. At first she was scared. But finally, she got used to them and she listened to them. She got directions from them and followed them. She went up into the loft and found a whole lot of money hid there. She took it and built her a new house and used it. I heard my grandmother tell this. That was my step-grandmother named Dilsey.
"One of my bosses had a lot of money and he hid it in a cave. They tried to find it and to make my mother tell where it was hid, but she didn't know and couldn't tell. They came back several times and tried to find him at home but they couldn't catch him. That was in Missouri before freedom came.
"I hate my father. He was white. I never did have no use for him. I never seen him because Mama was jayhawked from the place. I never heard my mother say much about him either, except that he was red-headed. He was my mother's master. My mother was just forced. I hate him."
"My owners was Miss Betty and Mr. Luke Trotter. I was born in Tunica County, Mississippi. I farmed all my whole life. I did like it. One thing they said about slavery, you couldn't get away. They had dogs and you get away and have no place to go, nothing to eat. Travel was hard through the rough wilderness. One owner would notify another about a runaway. They would take him back or send him word to come get the runaway. Some of 'em tried to stay in the woods. They said they never tried to get away. I wasn't born till after freedom. They said they felt sorry when somebody got beat but they couldn't help it. They had feeling for their color.
"I come to Arkansas in 1925. I jus' can make it. I'm sickly. I made my part, three bales cotton, last year and prices was so low and provisions so high it is all gone. I don't get no help from the Welfare.
"I heard old folks set around the fire and spit and talk about them very things but I got here too late to know well enough to tell it.
"I recollect when seed was a scarce thing. We had to save all our seed. The women would swap around. Folks had to raise their own stock.
"The Ku Klux didn't bother us.
"I voted here in town. I don't bother the polls no more. I don't own nothing.
"Times and folks both been changing all my life. Some things is better and some people as good as they always been."
"Well ah wuz born second year after surrender. Some say dat makes me 72 years old. Mah maw only had two boys. Ah am de baby. My pa wuz name Manger Tubbs. I wuz a purty bad boy. When ah wuz one. Ah use ter hunt. Use ter catch six and eight possums in one night. Ah use ter love ter fish. Spunt er many a nite campin and fishin. An playin marbles wuz a wonderful game in mah days yo knows. Fokes wuzen so wile den.
"Ah recollect one night we went coon huntin and de boys wuz wanderin roun and got lost. Some of de boys wuz wanderin roun tryin to git out and couldn' so ah said: "Dar de seben star yo all jes wait and let me fine de way out and dey say all right," "We gwina trus yo to fine out a way out." Went on bout 200 yards and struck our fiel'. We crawled under fence and went on, struck our coan (corn) fiel'. Den dey all reconcile wha dey is and ah had a big laff. When ah wuz a boy ah use to drink a little whiskey. Finally ah said that would be mah ruin. Aftah ah got oldah ah jess decided ah'd quit. Ah nevah did do no hahm tho. Parents didn't raise me ter drink, ah jes taken up the habit mahself. Ah use ter steal Grandma's aigs, He! He! She use ter go ter church and tell us not to bother anything and fore she got out er sight we'd done gone in de hen house. We boys git dem eggs and git on out in our play thicket and roast em and eat em and you know grandma found out where we roast dem aigs at, and whooe if she didn' whup us. He! He! You know the wurst race ah evah had in mah life ah wuz comin on fum Spearsville and two coach whipper wuz layin side de road and you know dem things run me ooo-eee till ah got tuh a stream and you know ifn hit had not bee fer dat watah dem things woulder caught me.
"Coase mah grandma and me had had some putty good races. She tryin' ter cotch me but ah loves her terday fer dose races we had. Mah ma died when ah wuz one munt ole. Mah pa married agin and mah step-ma wuz mean to me so mah grandma come an got me and raised me. Ah hant nevah been in jail. Haint nevah been rested er nothin. Ah wish the chilluns of terday wuz like dey wuz when ah wuz a boy. We lived in er two room log house. Our house had a double chimney and we cooked on dat. You know we'd put a big back stick uv wood on. Mah pa loved his big back sticks of wood to hold the fire. Wudden no stoves at that time. We cooked on chimney fires. We et ash cakes. Hit sho wuz good too. Granma say ash cake wuz healthy. Ah bleve fokes ought ter eat a few of dem now. We had a putty good school house made outn logs. Ah stop school when ah wuz in the third grade. Ah learnt purty fair. We uster have ter take rocks an beat corn ter make meal. We wud have ter go sometime fifty mile to git ter a griss mill. An when we couldn't git coan mashed inter meal we wud make hominy and hit sho wuz good too.
"Ah use ter card fer granma while she wuz spinnin. We made our socks, gloves, and thread. We didn' have dat ter buy. When ah wuz a boy everybody farmed and we had a plenty. Didn' have drouth in does days.
"Any kine of lan' would produce. Ah use ter get a many lashin bout pickin cotton. Ah couldn' pick until ah got dem lashins. Some fokes say lashin don' help but ah clare dey do.
"Ah use ter pick cotton and sing. Ah can recollect so well de song. Hit went lak dis:
"Ah jes love ter talk bout when ah wuz a boy. We had a lop cabin fuh a church house. In dem days on meetin' Sunday fokes would go ter church and carry de chillun but now not neither the chillun nor dey ma's go either.
"Fokes would serve the Lord. Dey would git happy in de fiel' and fall out choppin, choppin cotton. No sich times as hit wuz now. Aftah all er mah youth and hardship and goodship the Lord called me ter preach and when he called me ah answered. Ah wuz comin cross de fiel about 12 er'clock. Ah tole him ah couldn' preach. Den ah heard a voice above mah haid. Ah stopped and wondahed and pondered wid mahself knowin' de condition uv mahself. Ah said, "Lord yo knows ah caint preach." Den ah made a vow and ah stuck to hit but ah heard nother voice say, "Go and preach" again. And ah heerd ah nother voice say "Yo go in de mawnin and pray befo sunrise." Ah goes thar and gits on mah knees and tried ter pray an ah heard dogs a barkin and chains rattlin an cats mewin and everthing. Ah had heard ole fokes talk bout when yo go ter pray chains and things would track yer tenshun. The same happen ter me. Ah want on and ended mah prayer and yo know ah wuz a glad soul. Ah felt lak ah cud go an then an do whut the Lawd said. Ah gone on an stahted preachin. Hit seemed the church wuz so crowded wid so many local preachers ah couldn' do whut de Lawd wanted me ter so ah ask the pastor ifn ah could run prayer meetin and he said, "Why chile yes," and ah went on wid de prayer meetin till ever'body quit his church and come to mah prayer meetin so den he called mah han', got jealous and made me move mah prayer meetin. So som good white fokes let me come ovah neah them and start a prayer meetin so de people followed me and we built a church and hit is yet dare terday."
"I was here in slavery times but I don't know what year I was born. War? I was in it!
"I member old master and old mistis too. I member I didn't know nothin' bout my mother and father cause it was night when they went to work and night when they come in and we chilluns would be under the bed asleep.
"I know the white folks had a kitchen full of we chilluns. We went over to the kitchen to eat.
"My mother belonged to the Cockrills and my father belonged to the Armstrongs. They were cousins and their plantations joined.
"I was large enough to know when they took my parents to Texas, but I didn't know how serious it was till they was gone. I member peepin' through the crack of the fence but I didn't know they was takin' em off.
"They left me with the old doctor woman. She doctored both white and colored. I stayed there till I was fourteen years old.
"I know we had our meals off a big wooden tray but we had wooden spoons to eat with.
"I member when they was fightin' here at Pine Bluff. I was standin' at the overseer's bell house waitin' for a doll dress a girl had promised me and the guns was goin' just like pop guns. We didn't know what it was to take off our shoes and clothes for six months. We was ready to run if they broke in on us.
"The Yankees had their headquarters at the big house near the river. All this was in woods till I growed up. We used to have our picnic here.
"I was standin' right at the post when they rung the bell in the bell house when peace declared. I heered the old folks sayin, 'We is free, we is free!'
"I know before freedom they wouldn't let us burn a speck of light at night. Had these little iron lamps. They'd twist wicks and put em in tallow. I don't know whether it was beef or sheep tallow but they had plenty of sheeps on the place.
"Colonel Cockrill would have us come up to the big house every Sunday mornin' and he'd give us a apple or a stick of candy. But them that was big enough to work wouldn't get any. They worked on Sunday too—did the washin' every Sunday evenin'.
"Oh lord, they had a big plantation.
"After the War I went to school some. We had white teachers from the North. I didn't get to go much except on rainy days. Other times I had to work. I got so I could read print but I can't read writin'. I used to could but since I been sick seems like my mind just hops off.
"After freedom my parents rented land and farmed. I stayed with the old doctor woman till I was fourteen then I went to my parents.
"I married when I was eighteen and had five chillun. When I worked for my father he'd let us quit when we got tired and sit under the shade bushes. But when I married I had to work harder than ever. My husband was just a run-around. He'd put in a crop and then go and leave it. Sometimes he was a constable. Finally he went off and took up with another woman.
"I been here in Arkansas all my life except eight months I lived in St. Louis, but I didn't like it. When I was in St. Louis I know it started to snow. I thought it was somebody pickin' geese. I said, 'What is that?' and my granddaughter said, 'Gal, that's snow.'
"I don't know what to think of the younger generation. I think they is just goin' out to nothin'. They say they are gettin' weaker and wiser but I think they are weaker and foolish—they are not wise in the right way. Some are very good to their parents and some are not.
"Honey, I don't know how things is goin'—all I know is they is mighty tight right now."
"Yes ma'am, I was born in slavery days. They never did tell me when I was born but I was ten the seventh day of August the same year we was freed.
"No ma'am, I wasn't born in Arkansas. I was born in Georgia. I sent there and got my license to show my age. I was twenty years old when I married.
"George Jones was my old master. But, Lawd, them folks is all dead now. Old master and old missis, yes ma'am, all of 'em dead.
"Fight 'round us? No, they didn't fight there but they come through there. Yes ma'am, they come through there. Oh, chile, they got horses and mules.
"Used to give us the Confederate money. Wasn't no good though. They got the silver and gold. Confederate money was white on one side and green on the other. Yes'm, they was Yankees.
"Oh, yes'am, old master was good to us. He didn't never marry. My grandmother was the cook.
"My mother was born in Virginia. I heerd her talk of the Nat Turner Rebellion but I never did see him.
"Our folks stayed right on after freedom and hired by the month. And hired us children for our victuals and clothes.
"I stayed there till I was married. Then I come to Vicksburg, Mississippi. Had nine children and all dead but two.
"Me? Oh, I done washin' and ironin' mostly, cooked and most anything I could get to do. I'm all worked down now though.
"We emigrated from Georgia to Mississippi. All my children born there.
"I 'member the soldiers had guns and we was scared of 'em. We looked for 'em to come up the road but they come out of the woods and was around us right now. They didn't mind creeks or nothin', ridin' horseback or walkin'. I know they said, 'We ain't gwine hurt you.'
"Old master's mother and father was named Sally and Billy. 'Member 'em? 'Co'se I do—many times as I waited on that table. But they all dead 'fore I even thought about bein' grown.
"Oh, yes ma'am, we had a plenty to eat. That's the reason I misses it now.
"I went to school one year but I had to work so hard I done forgot nearly everything I learned. I can read a little but my eyes ain't no good.
"Dem Ku Klux—you dassent be out after dark. You better not be out on the street after dark. But Sunday night they didn't bother you when you went to church.
"I was raised up with two white girls and their mother didn't 'low us to get out of the yard.
"I used to pick peas and cotton. Yes ma'am, that was when we was with the same old man, George Jones. I used to huddle (herd) cows for miles and miles. My mother was the milk woman. I don't know how many she milked but she milked a heap of 'em.
"Used to climb up in trees and tear our clothes. Then they'd whip us. Old master say, 'Don't you tell me no lie.' Then old Miss Sally would get a stick and make out she gwine kill us, but she wouldn't touch us a lick.
"Younger generation? Now you done asked me too soon. I set here and look at 'em. Sometimes I don't know what gwine come of 'em. When we was young we didn't do nothin' like they doin' now. Why we dassent raise our dresses. If we see a man comin' we pull down our skirts. Yes, Lawd."