"I was born in North Carolina, Franklin County, near Raleigh. My father's name really I don't know. Folks said my master was my daddy. That's what they told me. Of course, I don't know myself. But then white folks did anything they wanted to in slavery times.
"My mother's name was Morina Ruffin. I don't know the names of my grandparents. That is too far back in slavery for me. Of course, old man Ruffin my father's father, which would have been my grandfather, he died way back yonder in slave times before the war. My father gotten kilt in the war. His name was Tom Ruffin. I was named after him. He died trying to hold us. That man owned three hundred slaves. He never married. Carried my mother round everywhere he went. Out of all his niggers, he didn't have but one with him. That was in slavery time and he was a fool about her.
"I couldn't tell you exactly when I was born. Up until the surrender I couldn't tell how old I was. I am somewheres around eighty-two years old. The old lady is just about the same. We guesses it in part. We figure it on what we heard the old folks say and things like that. I remember plenty of things about slavery that I saw.
"I never did much when I was a boy. The biggest thing I remember is a mule got to kicking and jumped around in a stall. She lost her footing and fell down and broke her neck right there in the stall. I remember her name as well as if it was yesterday. Her name was Bird. That was just before the war. I know I must have been at least four years old then. You can figure that up and see what it comes to.
"I never did any work when I was a child. I jus went to the spring with the young Mistress and danced for them sometimes. But they never did give me any work to do,—like they did the others. I lived right in the biggest house the biggest portion of my time.
"That day and time, they made compost heaps. Mixed dirt with manure. They hoed cotton and crops. They didn't know what school was. They helped with washing and ironing. Did every kind of work they had strength enough to do till they got big enough to go to the field. That was what the children did.
"When they were about seven years old, to the best of my recollection they would go to the field. Seven or eight. They would pick up corn stalks and brush. And from that on when they were about eight or nine, they would pick cotton.
"My mother never did have to do anything round the farm. She lived about seventy-five miles from it, there where the master had his office. He was a lawyer. After I was born, she didn't come out to see me but once a year that I recollect. When she did come, she would bring me some candy or cakes or something like that.
"I didn't see the soldiers during the time of the war. But I saw plenty of them afterwards—riding round and telling the niggers they were free. They had some of the finest saddles I ever seed. You could hear them creaking a block off. No, I didn't see them while they was fighting. We were close enough to hear the guns crash, and we could see the light from them, but I didn't actually see the fightin. The Yankees come through on every plantation where they were working and entered into every house and told us we was free. The Yankees did it. They told you you were free as they were, that you didn't have to stay where you was, that you didn't have no more master, that you could go and come as you pleased.
"I got along hard after I was freed. It is a hard matter to tell you what we could find or get. We used to dig up dirt in the smokehouse and boil it and dry it and sift it to get the salt to season our food with. We used to go out and get old bones that had been throwed away and crack them open and get the marrow and use them to season the greens with. Jus plenty of niggers then didn't have anything but that to eat.
"Even in slavery times, there was plenty of niggers out of them three hundred slaves who had to break up old lard gourds and use them for meat. They had to pick up bones off the dung hill and crack them open to cook with. And then, of course, they'd steal. Had to steal. That the bes way to git what they wanted.
"They had a great big kitchen for the slaves. They had what you call pot racks they could push them big pots in and out on. They cooked hog slop there. They had trays and bowls to eat out of that were made out of gum wood. It was a long house used as a kitchen for the hands to go in and eat. They et dinner there and for supper they would be there. But breakfast, they would have to eat in the field. The young niggers would bring it out to them. They would bring it about an hour after the sun rose and the slave hands would eat it right out in the field; that was the breakfast. You see the hands went to the field before sunup, and they didn't get to eat breakfast in the kitchen and it had to be et in the field. Little undergrowth of children—they had plenty of them on the place—had to carry their meals to them.
"They would usually give them collars [HW: collards] in green times, potatoes in potato time. Bread,—they didn't know what that was. White folks hardly knew theirselves. They didn't have butter and they didn't have no sugar. Didn't know much about what meat was yet. They would give the little bits of children pot liquor. That's the most I ever seed them git. Of course I was treated differently. You couldn't judge them by me. I was the only half-white youngun round there, and they said I was half-brother to ol Marse's chillun. And the white chillen would git me up to the house to dance for them and all like, and they would give me biscuits or anything good they had. I never seed the others eatin nothin but pot liquor.
"Most of the slaves lived in log cabins. You know they never had but one door. In general where they had large families, they would have two rooms with a chimney in the middle of the house. The chimney was built out of mud and straw. I can remember them sawin the timber. Two pulled a big ol crosscut saw. Didn't have no saw mills then. This world has come from a long ways. They used to didn't have no plows. It was without form. You made it at home.
"They had ol homemade bedsteads to sleep in. They had a little rope that ran back and forth instead of slats. That was called a corded bed. Cheers were all made at home and were split bottoms.
"They didn't many of the slaves have food in their homes. But when they did, they would jus have a little wooden box and they would put their food in it.
"It seems like the white people got to burying their money during the time of the war. That never come out till after the war. Then they got to wantin that money and started looking for it. There never was any talk of buried treasure before the war.
"My folks didn't give me any schoolin before the surrender. I never got any before the surrender and a mighty little afterwards. No nigger knowed anything. I started to farming when I was thirteen years old. I used to be a fertilizer, and then a cotton sower. That was the biggest I knowed about farming when I was a boy. My mother lived about fifteen years after slavery. I reckon.
"In the time of slavery, you couldn't marry a woman. You just took up with her. Mother married the same man she had been going with after freedom. She had four children after the surrender as fer as I can tell—three girls and two boys.
"I moved from North Carolina to Louisiana. Stayed there one year and then moved here. Bought forty acres of land. Bought it after I'd been here a year. It took me four years to pay for that. Then next time I bought eighty acres and paid for them. Paid them out in two years. Then I bought eighty acres more and paid for them in two years. Couldn't pay for them cash at first, but could have paid for the last eighty when I bought them if I had a wanted to. Then I bought eighty more and then I bought eighty again and then forty and on till I had five hundred and three acres of farm land. I got the three over when I got the sorghum mill.
"I left my farm and come to the city for doctor's treatment. My old lady and I worked out five hundred and three acres of land. I got five children living. I gave each one of them forty acres of land. Most of the rest I sold. I got a fellow here that owes me for one of the places now. He lives over on Third and Dennison. His name is Wright. My old lady an me held on to that and didn't lose it even in all these hard years.
"My daughter kept after me to come here and she built this little house out here where I could holler or do anything I wanted to do and not disturb nobody. I couldn't feel at home up in a big house with other people. Four or five months ago it would take two people to put me to bed. I would get off from home and have to carry me back. But I am gettin along fine now. This high blood pressure keeps me from remembering so well. Ol lady where's my pipe? You didn't find it up to daughter's? Ain't it in the kitchen? Can't you find it nowheres? What didju do with it? Well, you needn't look for it no longer. It's here in my pocket. That's my high blood pressure workin. That whut it does to you.
"I belong to the Primitive Baptist Church and have been belonging to it altogether about sixty-three years. I used to be a Missionary. I been a member of the church a long time.
"I think times are jus fulfilling the Bible. The people are wiser now than we ever known them to be and wickeder. I don't believe the times you see now will be always. People are getting so wise and so wicked that I think the end is near at hand. You notice the Germans now are trying to make slaves out of the Jews. There's the Japans that is jus slaughtering up the Chinese like they was nothin but dumb brutes. The world is wickeder than it ever has been before.
"The young people today! I'd hate to tell you what I do think of them. The business is going to fall."
"I will be, providin' the good Lord spare me, 79 years old the first day of January. I was born in Lawrence County, South Carolina. The Big road was the dividing line between that and Edgefield County. My mother belonged to John Griffin. His wife named Rebecca. My father was a Irishman. Course he was a white man—Irishman. Show I did know him. He didn't own no slaves. I don't guess he have any land. He was a overseer in Edgefield County. His name was Ephraim Rumple. What become of him? He went off to fight the Yankees and took Malaria fever and died on Red River. I could show you bout where he died.
"My mother had a big family. I can't tell you much bout them. I was the youngest. She cooked up at John Griffins. He was a old man and the land was all his wife's. She was old too. She had some grown girls. He had no children. They called him Pa and I did too. I stayed round with him nearly all the time helping him.
"He had a room and she had a room. I slept on a bed—little bed—home-made bed—in the room wid him and she slept in the room with her two girls and my mother slept in the kitchen a whole heap so she be there to get breakfast early. They riz early every mornin'. John Griffins wife owned four plantations more than 160 acres in each one, but I couldn't say how much.
"My mother was a field hand in busy times too. Miss Rebecca had all the slaves clothes made. She seed to that. She go to the city, Augusta, and bring back bolts cloth. One slave sewed for Miss Rebecca and her family. She didn't do all the sewing but she sewed all the time. One woman done all the weavin'. At night after they work in the field Miss Rebecca give em tasks—so many bats to card or so much spinnin' to do.
"Master John didn't want em to work at night but she made em work all the same. They b'long to her. Another thing the women had to do was work in the garden. It was a three acre garden. They always had plenty in thar. Had it palinged so the young chickens couldn't squeeze through the cracks.
"They had plenty stock and made all the fertilizer needed in the garden and patches. They had goober patch, popcorn patch, sorghum patches, several of em, pea patches but they was field cabbage patch and watermellon patch. They had chicken house, goose house, duck house and way off a turkey pen. It had a cover on it. They had to be cleaned and all that manure moved to the garden and patches. Old man John Griffin was a good man. Things went on pretty quiet bout the place. They had to do their own cooking. They got for the grown ups 3 pounds meat, 1 pk.[TR:?] meal a week. They fed the young chaps plenty so they wouldn't get stunted. They keep em chunky till they get old nough to grow up tall and that make big women and big men. They stunt em then when they start runnin' up, it cause em to be low. The owners was mighty careful (not)[HW: ?] to feed the chaps nough to eat so they make strong hands.
"Men come long the road peddlin' from out the cities, men come long with droves of horses and mules. They was called horse traders. Then once in a while they come long tradin' and selling slaves. Nother way they sell em was at public auction. Iffen a slave steal from another master, like go in his smoke house or crib and steal, the sheriff have to whip him. They would have public whippin'.
"How'd they know was freedom? How'd they not know it was freedom? Everybody went wild. They was jes' crazy cause they was free. Way I knowd for certain it was freedom Mr. John Griffin had all the slaves that hadn't done went off come to the house and he told them they was all free. Some of em just started walking the roads till they nearly starved. The government didn't start feeding the slaves till so many nearly starved. My mother cooked on nearly a year. Then she went to work for Vaughn in Edgefield County.
"They didn't give them no land. The white folks was land pore.
"They didn't have no money. When the masters had money they give the slaves a little spending money. Nearly all the slaves had a little money long. They get a pass to split rails for a neighbor and make money. That was befo freedom. After freedom nobody had money but the Yankee soldiers. They keep it closer than the folks you been livin' with.
"Mr. Griffin, he was called General by all the young men. He was too old to fight so he trained soldiers. He didn't wear a uniform but they did. They met certain days every week. They wore gray uniforms.
"They had a battle at Lawrence. It was 17 miles. The soldiers passed long the Big road. I didn't see the battles. I heard plenty talk about that conflict at Lawrence though.
"I heard the slaves was goin' to get 40 acres and a mule. I tell you they didn't wait to see if they was going to get another meal. They went wild, walking and hooping up and down the road. They found out when they nearly starved they had got the bad end of the game somehow. Then to keep em from starvin' they had certain days to go to Lawrence and get a little rations. Not much I tell you. They started stealin' and the Ku Klux started up bout that.
"The President got killed (Abraham Lincoln). Then they knowed the gig was up. They had to go to work hard as ever and mighty little to eat. The slaves did vote. It was the color of the paper they used way they knowed how to vote. The Republican government had full sway 12 years. All the offices at Edgefield nearly was Negroes cept the sheriff. The Yankees tell em what to do way they knowed how. Butler went to Congress. He was a Negro—(???). That was what the Ku Klux was mad bout. They run the Yankees out and took holt of the offices soon as they could.
"Our master had no Ku Klux comin' on our place. He protected us, It wasn't no different than slavery till I was nearly grown and a drove was walking going west to better place. I got in with them and come on. The Ku Klux had killed several Negroes. That scared them all up. I remember Tuscaloosa, Alabama when we cone through there. We was walking—a line a mile long—marching and singing. They was building back in a hurry seemed like to me. The town had been burned up. Some dropped out to get work along. Some fell out sick. Some so weak they died long the road. Had to keep up. Some stopped; they never caught up no more. Mostly old folks or half starved folks couldn't keep going. The Ku Klux whoop and shoot you down for any little thing. They started at night, fraid of the Yankees but they whooped and run them out and the Negroes left. The Ku Klux got so bold they didn't dress up nor go at night neither. At first they was careful then they got bold. The Yankee soldiers bout all they was afraid of. The Negroes found out who some of the Ku Klux was and told the Yankees but it didn't do much good. After bout twelve years all the Yankees gone back home. The white folks down in Carolina thought bout as little of them as Negroes. They wouldn't let them have no land if they did have money to pay any price for it. They didn't want them living amongst them. They say they rether have a Negro family.
"The biggest Negro uprisin' I ever seed was at freedom. They riz up in a hurry.
"I had to stop and work all along. I got to Arkansas in 1881. I never went no further. I been all my life farmin'. I cut and sell wood, clear land. The best living was when I farmed and sold wood. I bought a 10 acre farm and cleared it up graduly, then I sold it fer $180.00 cause I got blind and couldn't see to farm it. I had a house on it. I own this here house (a splendid home). My daughter and her husband come to take care me. They come from Cincinatti here. She made $15.00 a week up there three years. I get $8.00 a month now from the Social Welfare. If I could see I could make money.
"I never seen times like this. Sin is causin' it. Unrest and selfishness. No neighborly spirit. I don't bother no young folks. I don't know how they will come out. If they caint get a big price they won't work and the white folks are doing their own work, and don't help like they did. I could get along if I could see. I had a light stroke keeps me from talkin' good, I hear that."
"My father's name was Ed Russell, and he was owned by Dr. Tom Russell, de first pioneer settler of Russellville—de' man de town got its name from.
"My name is Henry, and some folks call me 'Bud.' I was born at Old Dwight de 28th of October, 1866. Yes suh, dat date is correct.
"I was too young to remember much about happenings soon after de War, but I kin ricollect my father belongin' to de militia for awhile during de Reconstruction days. Both Negroes and whites were members of de militia.
"My folks come here from Alabama, but I don't know much about them except dat my grandmother, Charlotte Edwards, give me an old wash pot dat has been in de family over one hundred years. Yes suh, it's out here in de ya'd now. Also, I owns an old ax handle dat I keep down at de store jist for a relic of old days. It's about a hundred years old, too.
"My wife was Sallie Johnson of Little Rock, and she was a sister of Mrs. Charley Mays, de barber you used to know, who was here sich a long time.
"For a long time I worked at different kinds of odd jobs, sometimes in de coal mines and sometimes on de farms, but for several years I've run a little store for de colored folks here in Russellville. Ain't able to do very much now.
"I remember very well de first train dat was ever run into Russellville. Must have been 68 or 69 years ago. A big crowd of people was here from all over de country. Of course dere was only a few families living in de town, and only one or two families of colored folks. People come in from everywhere, and it was a great sign. Little old train was no bigger dan de Dardanelle & Russellville train. (You remember de little old train dey used to call de 'Dinkey' don't you?) Well, it wasn't no bigger dan de Dinkey, and it didn't run into de depot at all, stopped down where de dump is now. Sure was a sight. Lot of de folks was afraid and wouldn't go near it, started to run when two men got off. I saw only two man working in front of it, but I remember it very plain. Dey was working with wheelbarrows and shovels to clear up de track ahead.
"Another thing I remember as a boy was de 'sassination of President Gyarfield. I can't read or write but very little, but I remember about dat. It was a dull, foggy mornin', and I was crossin' de bayou with Big Bob Smith. (You remember 'Big Bob' dat used to have the merry-go-'round and made all de county fairs.) Well, he told me all about de killing of de President. It was about 1881 wasn't it?
"I think times was better in de old days because people was better. Had a heap more honor in de old days dan dey have now. Not many young folks today have much character.
"All right. Come back again. Whenever I kin help you out any way, I'll be glad to."
NOTE: Henry Russell is quite proud of the fact that his ancestors were the first families of Russellville. He is a polite mulatto, uneducated, and just enough brogue to lend the Southern flavor to his speech, but is a fluent conversationalist.
"We lived in Greenbrier, Faulkner County, Arkansas. All stayed at home and got along very well. We had enough to eat and wear. Mistress was awful mean to us but we stayed with them until after the war. After the war master moved us off to another place he had and my father farmed for his self, master and his pa and ma, and mistress' pa and ma. They awful good to us, but mistress was so high tempered she would get mad and whip some of the slaves but she never whipped any of us. She worried so over the loss of her slaves after the war she went crazy. We had two white grand pas and grand mas. We colored children called them grandpa and ma and uncle and aunt like the white children did and we didn't know the difference. The slaves was only allowed biscuit on Christmas and sometimes on Sundays but we had beef and plenty of honey and everything after we moved from the big house. Mistress used to come down to see us an' my mother would cook dinner for her and master. He was such a good man and the best doctor in the State. He would come in and take the babies up (mother had nine children) and get them to sleep for my mother. His mother would come to the kitchen and ask for a good cup of coffee and mother would make it for her. The master and his family were Northern people and my mother was given to the mistress by her father and mother when she married.
"After my father bought his own farm about ten miles from the big house, father would put us all in an ox wagon and take us back to see our white folks.
"The mistress claimed to be a Christian and church member but I don't see how she could have been she was so mean.
"I think the present day generation mighty wicked. Seems like they get worse instead of better, even the members of the church are not as good as they used to be. They don't raise the children like they used to. They used to go to Sunday School and church and take the children, now the children do as they please, roam the streets. It is sad to see how the parents are raising the children, just feed them and let them go. The children rule the parents now.
"We sang the old hymns and 'Dixie', 'Carry Me Back to Old Virginia', 'When You and I Were Young, Maggie'."
[TR: Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]
Circumstances of Interview
1. Name and address of informant—Uncle Bob Samuels, Washington, Arkansas
2. Date and time of interview—Last of April, 1936
3. Place of interview—Washington, Arkansas
4. Name and address of person, if any, who put you in touch with informant—J.C.W. Smith.
5. Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you—J.C.W. Smith
6. Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.
Personal History of Informant
1. Ancestry—Grandmother, Spanish; Grandfather, Negro; father, Negro.
2. Place and date of birth—Born about 1846
3. Family—
4. Places lived in, with dates—
5. Education, with dates—
6. Occupations and accomplishments, with dates—
7. Special skills and interests—
8. Community and religious activities—
9. Description of informant—Tall and straight. He is blind. Clean in appearance, dressed in slightly faded overalls. He has short, clean, grey beard. Speaks with a clear accent.
10. Other points gained in interview—Ancestors were in De Soto expeditions.
Text of Interview (Unedited)
"From my mother's mother I learned that on my mother's side my ancestor came with De Soto from Spain where she was educated at Madrid. From Spain she came to Havana, Cuba, and from there to Tampa, Florida. From Florida she came to some point in Alabama. From this place she came to the Mississippi river and the East Bank and crossed where it is called Gaines Landing. After they crossed the river they went ten kilometers from there, traveled north from there to where Arkansas County is close to the mouth of the Arkansas River. Here they camped awhile. When they broke camp there they traveled northeast to Boiling Springs. Making their way from here they crossed the Ouachita River on the other side of Arkadelphia. They traveled on, crossing Little Missouri River below Wallaceburg. Here they found some Indian mounds. Then they traveled on a trail from there to Washington, turned into Washington and took a trail toward Columbus and turned off to the right (Uncle Bob not sure of the name of this trail) and crossed what is known as Beard's Lake. They crossed Little River at Ward's Ferry and crossed the Saline river. Traveling northwest they reached White Oak shoals where Index is now and crossed over into what was Mexico and traveled to a place called Kawaki located where [TR: ?] now is.
"After camping here for a while they came back into Arkansas to some point near Rando, crossed Red River at Dooley's Ferry, went to Coola Fabra(?) and back to Boiling Springs. [Here a gold mine was found and a quarrel ensued, and in a fight De Soto was killed.] They carried his body overland and buried him in the Mississippi River between Grensville[HW:sp.] and Vicksburg. [TR: Moved from end of interview: De Soto was buried at the junction of the Mississippi and [??] Rivers, about 100 miles south of Vicksburg.] The remaining forces of the expedition returned to Spain.
"Sometime in 1816 my mother's mother was born. My mother's mother was Spanish. My mother says she was well educated. Mother and her mother have Spanish mixed with Negro blood. I had a sister named Mary and a brother named John.
"Armarilla, my grandmother came here from Cuba through to Gaines Landing. Her son Edmin and her husband were with her. They crossed the Mississippi River and she said they stopped at the old De Soto camp. A short distance west of this place they met two men—Nick Trammel and John Morrow who profitted (dealt) in Negro slaves. My grandfather and mother employed these men to guide them to Coola Fabre(?) Camden?. From Little River to Dooley's Ferry these men carried them to Waco, Texas. They killed my grandfather and kept my grandmother forcing her to marry either a half-breed Mexican, an Indian or a Negro. It was near Waco in Hickman[HW:sp.] Prairie that mother was born. The boy Edmin was returned to Dooley's Ferry and remained in the vicinity until he was about seventeen years of age. He then lived in the vicinity of Little Rock about six months before returning to Mexico. My grandmother said that Mr. Trammel and Mr. Morrow probably thought he might cause trouble and killed him as she never saw him after he returned from Little Rock. Mother was held in Lafayette County at a point where the river crossed and joined Bowie County (Texas) and where Louisiana bounded the south.
"De Soto traveled by land, not by boat. He had a force of about 550 persons. The women dressed as men. My grandmother was with her husband.
"My mother was a slave. She was held in Bowie County, Hickens[HW:sp.] Prairie, by Bob Trammel. They kept her locked up and I have heard mother say that she used whale bone, card bats and a spinning wheel. Finally they got so hot behind the Trammels in 1847-48, they pulled up stakes and went down on the Guadalupe River and carried my mother's mother down there. Before they left Dave Block went on Trammel's bond and got my mother. He made my mother head housekeeper slave. She had been taught Spanish. She was tall and fair with straight black hair. She was married to Dick Samuels, my father.
"After the war my father was elected [HW: Hempstead] County Clerk in 1872 on the Republican ticket. He could neither read nor write, so was clerk in name only securing one of the white men to attend to the office. By trade he was a blacksmith."
Interviewer's Comment
Uncle Bob Samuels is the son of Richard Samuels and Mary. He was a slave of David Block. After freedom he came to Little Rock with a sister and a brother, John. Uncle Bob said he often heard his mother speak of a gold mine. She had a trunk of maps and charts which her mother had given to her. In this was supposed to be the papers regarding De Soto's legendary gold mine. The trunk had been lost as Uncle Bob has no idea where the gold mine is. He tells the story the same way, never varying a point. He does not claim to remember Indian trails or names.
Uncle Bob is tall and straight. He is blind. Was clean in appearance dressed in slightly faded overalls. He has a short, clean grey beard. He talks with a clear accent, no Negro accent. During Reconstruction days he served as County Clerk of Hempstead County under Carpetbaggar rule. During those days he was a political power to be reckoned with. He was a national as well as a state figure in the "Lily White Republican" organization. [His wife was a Negro, good looking, but showed little trace of much white blood.]
"Emma Sanderson"—"Wade Street". That was all the prospective interviewer could learn. "Emma Sanderson—ex-slave!" "Wade Street"—"Why it's way off that way. You go sort of thatta way, and then thatta way."
A city map disclosed no Wade Street. Maps belonging to a local abstractor helped not a whit. "Insurance maps are in more detail." someone advised, "Wade Street," mused the young woman at the desk, "I've heard of it. We have written a policy for someone there." The head of the department was new to the city, but he was eager to help. After about five minutes search—from wall maps to bound volumes of blocks and back again it appeared that "Wade Street" more frequently known as "Washington Street" meanders wanderingly from Silver Street, in the colored section out to the "Gorge addition" inhabited by low economic level whites.
Down Malvern Avenue (Hot springs' Beale Street) went the interviewer. On she went past the offices of a large Chicago packing house. For better then a block she trudged by dilapidated shops which a few seasons back had housed one of the key transient centers of the U.S.A. Down the street she walked, pausing for a moment to note that coffee colored faces decorated the placards in the beauty shop window—two well groomed mulatto girls sitting inside, evidently operators. Her course took her past sandwich joints and pool halls. Nails, she noted as she drifted along, had been driven into the projection beneath the plate glass window of the brick bank (closed during the depression—a building and bank built, owned and operated by negro capital) to keep loungers away. The colored theater (negroes are admitted only to the balconies of theaters in Hot Springs—one section of the balcony at the legitimate theater) she noticed was now serving as a religious gathering place. The well built and excellently maintained Pythian Bath house (where the hot waters are made available to colored folk) with the Alice Eve Hospital (45 beds, 5 nurses, 2 resident physicians—negro doctors thruout the town cooperating—surgical work a specialty) stood out in quiet dignity. For the rest, buildings were an indiscriminate hodge-podge of homes, apartment houses, shacks, and chain groceries. At the corner where "the street turns white" the interviewer turned east.
The Langston High School (for colored—with a reputation for turning out good cooks, football players and academicians) stands on Silver Street. A few paces from the building the interviewer met a couple of plump colored women laughing and talking loudly.
"I beg your pardon," was her greeting, "can you tell me where Wade Street is?" They could and did. They were so frankly interested in knowing why the white women wanted Emma Sanderson that she told them her mission. They were not taken aback—there was no servility—no resentment they were frankly charmed with the idea. Their directions for finding Mrs. Sanderson became even more explicit.
When the proper turn off was found the question of Wade versus Washington Street was settled. A topsy-turvy sign at the intersection announced that Wade Street was ahead. Emma Sanderson's grandson lived a couple of blocks down the road.
Only the fact that she could hear someone inside moving about kept the interviewer hammering on the door. Finally she was rewarded by a voice. "Is that somebody a' knockin'?" In a moment the door opened. The question, "Were you a slave" no matter how delicately put is a difficult one to ask, but Mrs. Sanderson was helpful, if doubtful that her story would do much good. "I was just so little when it all happened." But the interviewer was invited in and placed in a chair near the fire.
"No ma'am. He ain't my grandson—I's the third grandmother. No son, you ain't three—you's five. Don't you remember what I told you? Yes, he stays with me, ma'am. I take care of him while the rest of 'em works.
"It's hard for me to remember. I was just so little. Yes, ma'am, I was born a slave—but I was so little. Seems to me like I remember a big, big house. We was sort of out in the country---out from Memphis. I know there was my father and my mother and my uncles and my aunts. I know there was that many. How many more of us old man Doc Walker had—I just don't know. They must have took good care of us tho. My mother was a house nigrah.
"When the war was ready to quit they gave us our pick. We could stay on and work for wages or we could go. The folks decided that the'd go on in to Memphis. My Mother and Father didn't live together none after we went to town. First I lived with Mother and then when she died my Father took me. My mother died when I was 9. She worked at cooking and washing. When I was big enough I went to school. I kept on going to school after my Father took me. He died when I was about 15. By that time I was old enough to look out after myself.
"What did I do? I stayed in folkses houses. I cooked and I washed. Then when I was about 16, I married. After that I had a man to take care of me. He was a carpenter.
"We been here in Hot Springs a long time—you maybe heared of Sanderson—he took up platering and he was good too. How long I been in Hot Springs—law I don't know—'cept I was a full grown women when we come.
"I's had four children—all of 'em is dead. I lives with my grandson. The little fellow, he'll be old enough to go to school in a year or two. A dime for him ma'am—an' 2 cents besides? Now son you keep the dime and you can spend the pennies. I always tries to teach him to save. Then when he gets big he'll know what to do."
Dining room and living room joined one another by means of a high and wide arch. The stove was sensibly set up in this passage. Both rooms were comfortably furnished with products which had in all probability been bought new. The child stood close by thruout the entire conversation. There was no whit of timidity about him, nor was he the least impertinent. He was frankly interested and wanted to know what was being said. He received the dime and the pennies with a pleasant grin and a (grandmother prompted) "Thank you". But the gift didn't startle him. Dimes must have been a fairly usual part of his life. But a few minutes before the interviewer left she dropped her pencil. It was new and long and yellow. The child's eyes clung to it as he returned it. "Would you like to have it." the young woman asked, "would you like a pencil of your very own, to draw with?" Would he! The child's whole face beamed. Dimes were as nothing compared to shiney new pencils. The third grandchild was overjoyed with his new plaything. Ella Sanderson was delighted with her great grandchild's pleasure. The interviewer received a warm and friendly "Good-bye".
"I said if ever I seed you agin I'd show you dis here scar on my head. See here [a puffed-out, black, rusty, not quite round place, where no hair grew]. Dat dar what my young mistress put on me when I was a chile. Dock Hardy hired me. He was rich and married a pore gal. It went to her head. He was good to me. She was mean. She had him whoop me a time or two for nothin'. They had two little babies, I stayed round wid. I loved em. I churned, brought in all the wood mighty near, brought bout all the water from the spring. Master Dock be coming horseback from Franklin, Tennessee. I knowed bout time I take the babies to meet him. He'd wait at a big stump we could climb on his horse, take the baby in front and us up behind him, and put us off on the back piazza at the house. I wrapped up the churn and quit. She ax me what I quit churnin' for. I say the butter come. She say it ain't had time. I say it ready to take up anyhow. She got so mad she throwed a stick of stove wood, hit me on my head. I run out crying, the blood streamin' down. I started to the spring, come back and got the water bucket. I got me some water and brought back a fresh bucket full. I washed my head in cool water where it was bleedin'. It bled all way back. She say, 'Where you been?' I say I been to the spring, brought some cool water to the babies. I give em some I told her. When I got water I always give them some. She took the bucket, made me go wid her, poured the water out in the path under a shade tree, and made me take 'nother bucketful home. I thought she was so mean; I didn't know what she was doing that about. Got to the house she put me on a clean chemisette. I slipped off down to the feed house, lay down, my head on the cotton seeds, and went to sleep.
"When Master Dock come he woke me up, wanted to know why I didn't meet him. He seen that blood. Went on to the house. He ask her what done my head that way. She say, 'She went to the spring, fell down, spilled the water, and hurt it on a rock.' I told him that wasn't so—not so! I told him all bout it. He told her she ought to be 'shamed treat good little nigger chap mean. He was so sorry for me. She didn't care. They had been goin' to old missis house every week. It was three weeks 'fo she would go. I got to see my mama, 'fo she died.
"Old Mistress Emily was a doctor woman. Dock told her, 'Mama, Scrubbs jumps and screams bout a hour late every evening wid her head.' When it got late it hurt and I screamed and jump up and down. Mistress Emily come got me in her arms, put me to sleep. When I woke up Dock and Kitty gone home with the babies. I cried bout being from the babies; I loved em, never been away from em 'fo. She got three maggots and says, 'Scrubbs, see what I got out your little head.' Mama had died then. She say, 'Your mama would want me to keep you here wid me.' She kept me till it healed up. Them maggots big as a sage broom straw. We swept the floor wid sage straw tied together then. Mistress Emily kept me a month with her and doctored my head every day. I slept on a pallet and on a little bed she had in the room. When I went back to Kitty's she wasn't as mean to me as she been—but mean nough then.
"My mama named Amy Hardy. She had five boys, three girls. She died with a young baby. I reckon they had different papas. I was my papa's only chile. They all said that. Bout a month after I went to Dock and Kitty's, it was surrender. He (the little Negro girl's father) come, stayed all night, and took me wid him to live. Dock wanted me to stay; I love Dock and the children. Every year till a few years ago my head get sore and run. We tried all kinds medicine on it. Don't know what cured it.
"The week 'fo I left there I had a task to make a cut of thread every night, a reel. When I heard papa was coming to git me, I put cotton bats under the reels and kivered em up. Good thing papa got me—Kitty would killed me when she went to spin next week. She been so mean why I done that way.
"They never sold any of our set but some on the place was sold. The mothers grieve and grieve over their children bein' sold. Some white folks let their slaves have preachin', some wouldn't. We had a bush arbor and set on big logs. Children set round on the ground. 'Fo freedom I never went to preachin'. I kept Kitty's babies so she went. Mothers didn't see their children much after they was sold.
"Fo freedom they would turn a wash pot upside-down at the door and have singin' and prayer meetin'. The pot would take up the noise. They done that when they danced too. I don't know how they found out the iron pot would take up the noise. They had plenty of em settin' round in them days. Somebody found it out and passed it on."