I was born in Dickson County, Tennessee, fifty miles north of Nashville, in 1864. It was on December twenty-eighth. My father told me when he was living how old I was. He told me all the way along, and I remember it.
"Nannie, Jeff, Hardy, John Mack, and Felix (that's me) are my father's children by his first wife. Lena, Martha, Esther are his children by his second wife. He had five children by my mother, and four of them lived to be grown, and one died in infancy. My mother was his first wife. Her name was Mary Street. Her name before she married—hold a minute, lemme see—seems like it was Mary—Mary—Street.
"My father and my mother couldn't have lived on the same plantation because she was a May and he was a Street. I don't know how they met.
"My father's master's name was Jick Street. He owned, to my knowing, my father, Bill Street; Henry Street, and Ed Street. He might have owned more but I heard my father say he owned those.
"My father said his white people weren't very wealthy. He and his brother had to go and cut cordwood, both summer and winter. And they was allowed so much work for a task. Their task was nine cords a week for each man. That was equal to a cord and a half a day for each man each day. My father would cut his wood like a man ought to cut it. But he said my uncle wouldn't git at his task. He would drink whiskey all the week. They'd get after him about bein' behind with his work, but he would say, 'Never mind that; I won't be behind Monday morning.' On Sunday morning at nine o'clock, he would get up and begin to cut on that wood. And on Monday morning at nine o'clock, he would have nine cords cut for his white folks and four or five for himself. It would all be done before nine o'clock Monday morning.
Living Brother
"I recently seen my brother Jeff Davis Street. I haven't seen him before for sixty-one years. He blew in here from Texas with a man named Professor Smuggers. He lives in Malakoff, Texas. It's been sixty-one years since he was where I could see him, but he says he saw me fifty-nine years ago. He came back home and I was 'sleep, he says, and he didn't wake me up. He rambled around a little and stood and looked at me awhile, he says. He was seventeen years old and I was twelve.
"My brother had a lot of children. He had four girls with him. He had a boy somewheres. He is older than I am.
"I heard my father say that in time of war, they were taking up folks that wouldn't join them and putting them in prison. They picked a white fellow up and had him tied with a rope and carried him down to a creek and were tying him up by his thumbs. He saw my father coming and said: 'There's a colored man I know.' My father said he knew him. They let him go when my father said he knew him and that he didn't harbor bushwhackers. Every time he saw my father after that he would say, 'Bill, you sure did save my life.'
"My father and mother lived in a log cabin. They had homemade furniture. They had a bunk up side the wall and a trundle bed. That was the cabin they lived in in slavery time.
Soldiers
"My father said once that when the men were gone, the soldiers came in and asked the women to cook for them. They wouldn't do it; so the soldiers made them bring them a chunk of fire. They throwed the fire on the bed and when it got to burning good, the officer wouldn't let them put it out. But he told them that they could get some of the boys to help them carry out their things if the boys were willing to do it. It was the officers who wanted the women to cook for them. It wasn't the slaves they asked; it was the white folks.
Sold His Master
"I heard my stepmother—I call her my mother—say some thing once. She belonged to a white family named Bell. They had a lot of slaves. My stepmother was the house girl; so she could get on to a lot of things the others couldn't. She stayed in the house. That was in slavery times. The speculators who were buying colored folks would put up at that place. Looked like a town but it all belonged to one person. The name of the place was Cloverdale, Tennessee. My stepmother said that a gang of these folks put up at Cloverdale once and then went on to Nashville, Tennessee. On the next day a nigger sold the speculator. He was educated and a mulatto, and he sold his master in with a bunch of other niggers. He was just fixin' to take the money, when his master got aware of it, and come on up just in time. I don't know what happened to the nigger. It was just an accident he got caught. My stepmother said it was true.
Good Masters
"My mother had a good master. At least, she said he was good. Slaves from other plantations would run away and come to her master's place to stay. They would stay a good while.
"My father said his master was good to him too. My father's young master has come to see us since the War. He got down low and used to come 'round. My father would give him turns of corn. You know when you used to go to the mill, you would carry about two bushels of corn and call it a milling or a turn. My father would let his young master shell a bushel or two of corn and carry it to the mill. He got poor and sure 'nough you see. We had moved away from them then, and he got in real hard luck. He used to come and sit a half day at a time at our house. And father would give him the corn for his family. We were living in Dickson County, Tennessee then. Seems like we was on Frank Hudson's place. We hadn't bought a place for ourselves then.
Ku Klux Klan
"You know they used to ku klux the niggers. They went to the house after the War of an old man named Hall. They demanded for him to let them in but he wouldn't. They said that they would break open the door if he didn't let them in. He didn't let them in, and they broke it down. When they started in, his wife threw fire brands in amongst 'em and he knicked one down with an ax. Them that wasn't hurt carried the wounded man away and it was reported the next day that he was sick. They never did bother the nigger no more and he never had no charges made against him.
Runaway Negroes—After Freedom
"It was over forty years ago. Me and my wife lived at a big sawmill near Elliott, Arkansas, just ten miles outside of Camden. White folks used to come up there and catch niggers and carry them back to Louisiana with them, claiming that they owed debts. One time two white men came to Elliott looking for a nigger. They came through the Negro quarters and all the men were off that day because it was a holiday. The nigger saw them first and ran to the woods. They ran after him and caught him. They came back through the quarters and tied him to one of the horses and then went on to Louisiana—them ridin' and him walkin' tied up with his arms behind him and roped to the horse like he was some kind of cattle or something. The niggers followed them with guns a little distance, but one nigger telephoned to El Dorado and the officers there were on the lookout for them. At night, the officers in plain clothes went over and chatted with them white men. When they saw the nigger, they asked what it was they had there. They told the one that asked that it was a damn nigger that owed money back in Louisiana and got smart and run away without paying up. The officers drew their guns and put handcuffs on them and carried them and the nigger away to Jail.
"They put everybody in jail that night. But the next morning they brought them to trial and fined the white men a hundred and fifty dollars apiece and after the trial they turned the nigger loose. That broke up the stealing of niggers. Before that they would come and take a Negro whenever they wanted to.
"Niggers were just beginning to wake up then, and know how to slip away and run off. We had whole families there that had run off one by one. The man would run away and leave his children, and as they got old enough, they would follow him one by one.
Right After the War
"Right after the War, my people farmed on shares. We had a place we leased on the Hudson place that we stayed on. We leased it for five years but we stayed there seven or maybe eleven years. When we left there we bought a place of our own. On the Hudson place we cleared up about thirty acres of land and 'tended it as long as we stayed there. We put out a lot of fruit trees on it. Had lots of peaches, and plums, and quinces—do you know what quinces are?—and danvils (these danvil plums you know). They are kinda purple looking fruit made in the shape of a prune. They are about two inches through—jus' about half as big as your fist.
"When we moved to our own place, we stayed in the same county. It was just about three-fourths of a mile from the Hudson place—west of it.
Moving to Arkansas
"I came to Arkansas with the intention of going to school. But I jus' messed myself up. Instead of goin' to school, I went and got married. I was out here just one year before I got married. I married the first time in 1887—February fourteenth, I think. My first wife taken sick with rheumatism and she died in 1908. We were married thirty-one years. I married again about 1913.
Vocational Experiences
"When I was able to work, I worked in the railroad shops—boiler maker's helper. Before that I farmed and did other things. Went from trackman to machinist's helper and boilermaker's helper.
Opinions
"Young folks Just need the right handlin'.
"I don't mix in politics."
"Pa was sold twice to my knowing. He was sold to McCoy, then to Alexander. He was Virginian. Then he was carried to Alabama and brought to Holly Grove by the Mayos. I have wore four names, Alexander, Adams, Morgan, and Tabon.
"My mother's owners was Ellis from Alabama. She said she was sold from the Scales to Ellis. Her father, sister, and two brothers was sold from Ellis. She never seen them no more. They found Uncle Charles Ellis dead in the field. They never knowed how it come.
"My parents had hard times during slavery. Ma had a big scar on her shoulder where the overseer struck her with a whoop. She was chopping cotton. She either wasn't doing to suit him or wasn't getting along fast enough to suit him.
"Ma had so many little ones to raise she give me to Nancy Bennett. I love her soul in her grave. I helped her to do all her work she taught me. She'd leave me with her little boy and go to church and I'd make cakes and corn bread. She brag on me. We'd have biscuits on Sunday morning. They was a rarity.
"One day she had company. She told me to bake some potatoes with the jackets on. I washed the potatoes and wrapped them up in rags and boiled them. It made her so mad she wet the towel and whooped me with it. I unwrapped the potatoes and we had them that way for dinner. That was the maddest she ever got at me. She learned me to cook and keep a nice house and to sew good as anybody. I rather know how to work than be educated.
"Mr. Ash give me a lot of scraps from his garment factory. I made them up in quilts. He give me enough to make three dresses. I needed dresses so bad." (One dress has sixty-six pieces in it but it didn't look like that. They sent it to Little Tock and St. Louis for the county fairs. Her dresses looked fairly well.)
"I was born at Holly Grove, Arkansas. Alexander was the name my pa went by and that was my maiden name."
"I was born in north Georgia. It was not fer from Rome. We belong to Master Belton Moore and Miss Jane Moore. They had a big family, some grandchildren old as their own. That was my job playing wid the children. My parents' name Rob Moore and Pilfy Calley. She lived five miles from Belton Moore's house. She was hired out over at Moore's the way she and papa met up. I know now I was hired out too. I run after them children a long time it seemed like to me. I loved them and they cried after me. I get so tired I'd slip off and go up in the loft and soon be asleep. I learned to climb a ladder that very way. It was nailed up straight against the side of the wall. They'd ask me where I been. They never did whoop me fer that. I tell 'em I been asleep. I drapped off 'sleep. I was so tired. Papa helped with the young calves and the feeding and in the field too. Mama was a fast hand in the field. They called her a little guinea woman. She could outdo me when I was grown and she was getting old. She washed fer the Calley's. All I remember they was a old man and woman. Mama lived in the office at their house. He let her ride a horse to Moore's to work. I rode home wid her many a time. She rode a side saddle. I rode sideways too. She used a battling stick long as she lived when she washed.
"Papa died two years after the surrender in Atlanta, Georgia. The Moore's moved there and he went along. He left mama at Master Calley's and I was still kept at the old home place. Aunt Jilly kept me and my two oldest sisters. Her name was Jilly Calley. I seen mama right often. They fetched papa back to see us a few times and then he died. We all went to Atlanta where he was buried. Mama lived to be purty nigh a hundred years old. She had fourteen children. I had two sisters and eight half-brothers and three half-sisters. Some died so young they never was named. My stepfather was mean to her and beat her, caused some of their deaths. She was a midwife in her later years. She made us a living till I married. She was gone with Dr. Harrison a lot. He'd come take her off and bring her home in the buggy. I married and immigrated to Dell, Arkansas. We lived there a year and went to Memphis. Mama come there and died at my house. She got blind. Had to lead her about. My steppapa went off and never come back. He got drunk whenever he could get to it. We hunted him and asked about him. I think he went off with other women. We heard he did.
"Freedom—I heard Miss Jane say when she was packing up to go to Atlanta, 'I will get a nurse there. They will make her go to school.' I thought she was talking about me. I wanted to go. I loved the children. I got to go to school in the country a right smart. I can read and write. Me and my two sisters all was in the same class. It seemed strange then. We had a colored man teacher, Mr. Jacobin. It was easier for me to learn than my sisters. They are both dead now.
"I got three living children—one here and two in Memphis. After I got my hip broke I live about with them so they can wait on me.
"I don't know about this new way of living. My daughter in Memphis raising her little girl by a book. She don't learn her as much manners as children used to know. She got it from the white lady she works for. It tells how to do your child. Times done changed too much to suit my way of knowing. 'The Old Time Religion' is the only good pattern fer raising a family. Mighty little of that now."
"I was born on Wilmington landing in 1862 on the Ouachita River and was carried away when I was two years old. My mother ran away and left my sister and me when we was three and five years old. I never saw her any more till I was eight and after I was eight years old I never saw her again in forty years. After my mama left me old Master Neal come here to El Dorado and had me bound to him until I was twenty-one. I stayed there till I was twenty-one. I slept by the jamb of the fireplace on a sack of straw and covered with saddle blankets. That was in the winter when snow was waist high. In summer I slept on naked floor and anywhere I laid down was my bed just like a dog.
"I wasn't allowed to eat at the table. I et on the edge of the porch with the dogs with my fingers. I worked around the house and washed until I was nine and then I started to plowing. At ten I started splitting rails. My task was two hundred rails a day. If I didn't cut them I got a beating. I did not know what a coat was. I wore two pieces, a lowel[HW:?] underskirt and a lowel[HW:?] dress, bachelor brogans and sacks and rags wrapped around my legs for stockings. That was in winter. Summer I went barefooted and wore one piece. My sun hat was a rag tied on my head.
"I did not know anything about Sunday School nor church. The children would try to teach me my ABC's but master would not let them. Never visited any colored people. If I see a colored person coming I run from them. They said they might steal me. After I got grown they let me go to a colored party and they whipped me for going. Tried to make me tell whether or not a boy come home with me but I did not tell it; one come with me though. That was the first time I got out. Of course they sent one of the boys along with me but he would not tell on me.
"I never slept in a bed until I was twenty-two years old. Never was with any colored people until I was grown. My play was with white children. My father was a white man. He was my ma's old master and they was Neals. They kept my hair cut off like a boy's all the time. I never wore a stocking until I was twenty-two and my hair did not grow out and get combed until I was twenty-two. My old master and mistress would have been mean to me but I was so smart they did not get a chance. The only thing I was treated like a dog.
"I live in Junction City but am here visiting my daughter."
"I was born in Clark County adjoining Hot Spring County, between Malvern and Arkadelphia. Clark County was named after old man General Clark. He was worth four or five thousand acres of land.
"My father's name was Anthony McClellan. Why they called me Anthony Taylor was my stepfather was named Taylor. My mother's name was Lettie Sunnaville. My mother has been dead thirty or forty years and my father died six months before I was born. He died a natural death. Sickness. He was exposed and died of pneumonia.
"Fayette Sunnaville was my grandfather on my mother's side. That was my mother's father. Rachel Sunnaville was my mother's mother's name. I don't know the names of my father's people. They was sole[HW:?] in slavery. But it is been so far back; I don't remember nothing, and I don't know whether they would or not if they was living.
"We stayed on the old plantation for seven or eight years before we had sense enough or knowed enough to get away from there and git something for ourselves. That is how I come to raise such big potatoes. I been raising them fifty years. These are hill potatoes. You have to know how to raise potatoes to grow 'em this big. (He showed me some potatoes, sweet, weighing about seven pounds—ed.)
"I have heard my mother and my grandfather tell lots of stories about slavery. I can't remember them.
"Old man Bullocks had about eight or ten families that I knew about. Those were the families that lived right near us in the quarters. I didn't say eight or ten hands—I said eight or ten families. Them was the ones that was right near us. We was awful small after freedom but them what was with him stayed with him quite a while—stayed with the old master. He would pay them so much after freedom come.
"Lawd. I could tell you things about slavery. But I'm forgitful and I can't do it all at once. He had the whole county from Arkadelphia clean down to Princeton and Tulip—our old mars did. Lonoke was between Princeton and Tulip. Princeton was the county-seat. He must have had a large number of slaves. Those ten families I knew was just those close 'round us. Most of the farm was fur pine country land. There would be thirty or forty acres over here of cultivation and then thirty or forty acres over there of woods and so on. He had more land than anybody else but it wasn't all under cultivation.
"He's been dead now twenty or thirty years. I don't know that he was mean to his slaves. If he had been, they wouldn't have gone on after freedom. They would have moved out. You see, they didn't care for nothing but a little something to eat and a fine dress and they would have gone on to somebody else and got that.
"Wasn't no law then. He was the law. I worked all day long for ten cents a day. They would allowance you so many pounds of meat, so much meal, so much molasses. I have worked all day for ten cents and then gone out at night to get a few potatoes. I have pulled potatoes all day for a peck of meal and I was happy at that. I never did know what the price of cotton was.
"Where we was, the Ku Klux never did bother anybody. All there was, every time we went out we had to have a pass.
"My grandfather and grandmother were both whipped sometimes. I don't know the man that whipped them. I don't know whether it was the agent or the owner or who, but they were whipped. Lots of times they had work to do and didn't do it. Naturally they whipped them for it. That was what they whipped my grandparents for. Sometimes too, they would go off and wouldn't let the white folks know where they was going. Sometimes they would neglect to feed the horses or to milk the cows—something like that. That was the only reason I ever heard of for punishing them.
"I heard that if the boss man wanted to be with women that they had, the women would be scared not to be with him for fear he would whip them. And when they started whipping them for that they kept on till they got what they wanted. They would take them 'way off and have dealings with them. That is where so much of that yellow and half-white comes from.
"There was some one going through telling the people that they was free and that they was their own boss. But yet and still, there's lots of them never did leave the man they was with and lots of them left. There was lots of white people that wouldn't let a nigger tell their niggers that they was free, because they wanted to keep them blind to that for years. Kept them for three or four years anyway. Them that Bullocks liked was crazy about him. He would give them a show—so much a month and their keeps. I don't remember exactly how much it was but it was neighborhood price. He was a pretty good man. Of course, you never seen a white man that wouldn't cheat a little.
"He'd cheat you out of a little cotton. He would have the cotton carried to the gin. He would take half the corn and give us five or six shoats. After he got the cotton all picked and sold, the cotton it would all go to him for what you owed him for furnishing you. You never saw how much cotton was ginned, nor how much he got for it, nor how much it was worth nor nothing. They would just tell you you wasn't due nothing. They did that to hold you for another year. You got nothing to move on so you stay there and take what he gives you.
"Of all the crying you ever heard, one morning we'd got up and the pigs and hogs in the lot that we had fattened to go on that winter, he was catching them. After we'd done fattened them with the corn that was our share, he took 'em and sold 'em. We didn't even know we owed him anything. We thought the crops had done settled things. Nobody told us nothin'. All we children cried. The old man and the old woman didn't say nothing, because they was scared. My mother would get up and go down and milk the cows and what she'd get for the milking would maybe be a bucket of buttermilk.
"We'd have a spoonful of black molasses and corn bread and buttermilk for breakfast. We got flour bread once a week. We would work hard all the week talkin' 'bout what good biscuits we'd have Sunday morning. Sack of flour would last two or three months because we wouldn't cook flour bread only once a week—Saturday night or Sunday morning.
"We had no skillet at that time. We would rake the fireplace and push the ashes back and then you would put the cake down on the hearth or on a piece of paper or a leaf and then pull the ashes over the cake to cook it. Just like you roast a sweet potato. Then when it got done, you would rake the ashes back and wash the cake and you would eat it. Sometimes you would strike a little grit or gravel in it and break your teeth. But then I'm tellin' you the truth about it.
"When our hogs was taken that time, we didn't have nothing to go on that winter. They would compel us to stay. They would allowance us some meat and make us split rails and clear up land for it. It was a cinch if he didn't give it to you you couldn't get nothin'. Wasn't no way to get nothing. Then when crop time rolled 'round again they would take it all out of your crops. Make you split rails and wood to earn your meat and then charge it up to your crop anyhow. But you couldn't do nothin' 'bout it.
"Sometimes a barrel of molasses would set up in the smokehouse and turn to sugar. You goin' hungry and molasses wastin'. They was determined not to give you too much of it.
"I made my way by farming. After I got to be some size, I started at it. I farmed all my life. While I could work, things was pretty good. Wisht I was on a farm now. Even when I'm 'round here sick, I can git these potatoes raised with a little help from the neighbors.
"I don't belong to church. I oughter, but I don't. Then again, I figure that a man can be just as good out of it as he can in it. I've got good desires, but I never confessed to the public.
"I have had three hundred dollars worth of stuff stolen from me. Everything I produced is stolen from me because I have no way to protect myself. What I raise if I don't get shet of it right away, the people get shet of it for me. I had eighty head of chickens in the barn out there runnin' 'round. When I got sick and was in the bed and couldn't help myself, the chickens went. In the daytime, they would fix traps and jerk a string and pull a board down on them and then go out in the weeds and get them. I never reported nothin' to the police. I wasn't able to report nothing. I was just batching, and now and then people would come in and report them to me. They would wait till they saw somebody come in and when they saw that I was talking and wouldn't notice them, they would steal anything they wanted. The police came by here and ran them once. But that didn't do no good.
"Once somebody stole an automatic shotgun. They stole a colt one time. They stole all my clothes and pawned them to a whiskey dealer. He got sent to the pen for selling whiskey, but I didn't get my clothes. They come in the yard and steal my potatoes, collards, turnips, ochre (okra?), and so on. I lay there in the bed and see them, but I can't stop them. All I can do is to holler, 'You better go on and let them things alone.' Ever since the last war, I haven't been able to work. I am bare-feeted and naked now on account of not bein' able to support myself.
"I just come out of the hospital. I been too sick even to work in my garden. After I come home I taken a backset[TR: ?] but I am still staying here. I am just here on the mercies of the people. I don't get nothing but what the people give me. I don't get no moddities nor nothin' from the Government.
"I ain't never been able to get no help from the Government. Long time ago, I went down to the place and asked for help and they told me that since I was alone, I oughta be able to help myself. They gimme a ticket for twenty meals and told me by the time I ate them up, they might have something else they could do for me. I told them I couldn't go back and forth to git the meals. I have the ticket now. I couldn't git to the place to use it none, so I keep it for a keepsake. It is 'round here somewheres or other. I was past the pension age. I ain't been able to do no steady work since the war. I was too old for the war—the World War."
Interviewer's Comment [HW: omit]
The spelling of the name Sunnaville is phonetic. I don't recognize the name and he couldn't spell it of course.
When I called, he had potatoes that weighed at least seven pounds. They were laid out on the porch for sale. He had a small patch in his yard which he cultivated, and had gotten about ten bushels from it.
His account of slavery times is so vivid that you would consider his age nearer eighty than sixty-eight. A little questioning reveals that he has no idea of his age although he readily gives it as sixty-eight—a memorized figure.
"My mother was sold five times. She was sold when she was too little to remember her mother. Her mother was Charity Linnerman. They favored. She was dark and granny was light colored. My mother didn't love her mother like I loved her.
"Granny lived in a house behind the white church (?) in Helena. After freedom we kept writing till we got in tetch with her. We finally got granny with us on the Jefferies place at Clarendon.
"A man (Negro) come by and conjured my mother. She was with Miss Betty Reed (or Reid) up north of Lonoke. They was my mother's last owners. That old man made out like she stole things when he stole them his own black self. He'd make her hide out like she stole things. She had a sweetheart and him and his wife. She had to live with them. They stole her off from her last owner, Miss Betty Reed. They didn't like her sweetheart. They was going to marry. He bought all her wedding clothes. When she didn't marry him she let him have back all the weddin' clothes and he buried his sister in them. This old man was a conjurer. He give my mother a cup of some kind of herbs and made her drink it. He tole her all her love would go to Henry Deal. He liked him. He was my papa. Her love sure did leave her sweetheart and go to my papa. He bought her some nice clothes. She married in the clothes he got her. She was so glad to let go that old man and woman what conjured her 'way from her white folks to wait on them.
"Granny's head was all split open. I lived to see all that. White folks said her husband done it but she said one of her old master's struck her on the head with a shoe last.
"My papa said he'd hit boards and stood on them all day one after another working cold days.
"Master Wade Deal at freedom give papa a pair of chickens, goats, sheep, turkeys, a cow; and papa cleared ten acres of ground to pay for his first mule. He bought the mule from Master Wade Deal.
"Old Master Deal used to run us from behind him plowing. We tease him, say what he'd say to the horse or mule. He'd lock us up in the smokehouse. We'd eat dried beef and go to sleep. He was a good old man.
"Grandpa Henry Pool went to war. Papa was sold from the Pools to the Deals. Grandpa played with us. He'd put us all up on a horse we called Old Bill. He said he got so used to sleeping on his blanket on the ground in war times till he couldn't sleep on a bed. He couldn't get off asleep.
"Grandpa found a pitcher of gold money been buried in old Master Pool's stable. He give it to them. They knowed it was out there.
"Mother was with Miss Betty Reed in most of war times. Miss Betty hid their jewelry and money. She spoke of the Yankees coming and kill pretty chickens and drink up a churn of fresh milk turned ready for churning. It be in the chimney corner to keep warm. They'd take fat horses and turn their poor ones in the lot. They never could pass up a fat hog. They cleaned out the corn crib.
"All my kin folks was field hands. I ploughed all day long.
"Papa said his ole mistress Deal was out under an apple tree peeling apples to dry. A white crane flew over the tree and fluttered about over her. Next day she died. Then the old man married a younger woman.
"It is so about the pigeons at Pigeon Roost (Wattensaw, Arkansas). They weighted trees down till they actually broke limbs and swayed plenty of them. That was the richest land you ever seen in your life when it was cleared off. Folks couldn't rest for killing pigeons and wasted them all up. I was born at Pigeon Roost on Jim High's place. I seen a whole washpot full of stewed pigeon. It was fine eating. It was a shame to waste up all the pigeons and clear out the place."
"Yes'm, I was born in slavery times in Calhoun County, Mississippi.
"Bill Armstrong was my owner. He's been dead a long time.
"My folks stayed on there a good while.
"Pa said they was good to him but they wasn't good to my ma. I heered pa say they beat her till she died. I don't remember a thing 'bout my ma.
"I heered 'em talk 'bout the Ku Klux. They kep' that in my hearin' so much that I kep' that in my remembrance.
"I know when we stayed on the place pa said was old master's. Yes'm, I sure 'members dat. I know we stayed there till pa married again.
"Bill Armstrong's wife made our clothes. I know we stayed right in the yard with some more colored folks.
"Pa worked on the shares and rented too.
"I was twenty-four when I come from Mississippi here. I was married then and had three chillun. But they all dead now. I stays here with my grandson. I don't know what I'd do if it wasn't for him. I reckon I'd just be knockin' around—no tellin'.
"I got another grandson lives in Marvell. I went there to visit and I got so I couldn't walk, so my grandson carried me to the doctor. And he just looked at me—he had been knowin' me so long. I said, 'Don't you know me?' And he said, 'If you'd take off your hat I think I'd know you.' And he said, 'Well, for the Lawd, if it ain't Millie Taylor!'
"I've always done farmin'. That's the way I was raised—farmin'. I just looks at these folks in town and it seems funny to me to buy ever'thing you need. Looks to me like they would rather raise it.
"Oh, Lawd, don't talk about this young race. It looks to me like they is more heathe'nish. The Bible say they would be weaker and wiser but they is just too wise for their own good. I just looks at 'em and I don't know what to think about this young race. They is a few respects you and theirselves.
"I seen things here in town I didn't think I'd ever see. Seems like the people in the country act like they recognize you more.
"I has a good remembrance. Seems like I gets to studyin' 'bout it and it just comes to me like ABC. I know pa used to talk and tell us things and if I didn't believe it, I didn't give him no cross talk. But nowadays if chillun don't believe what you say, they goin' try to show you a point.
"Yes ma'am, folks is livin' a fast life—white and colored.
"Looks like the old folks has worked long enough for the white folks till they ought to have enough to live on."
"I was born in Releford County, Tennessee, ten miles from Murfreesboro. My parents belonged to Dr. Jimmy Manson. He was off and gone from home nearly all the time. He didn't have a Negro driver. Because he didn't they called us all Manson's free niggers. Folks didn't like it because we had so much freedom. One day a terrible thing happened broke up our happy way of living on Dr. Manson's place.
"Grandpa was part Indian. Dr. Jimmy didn't whoop. He visited and he'd get a jug of whiskey, call his niggers and give them a little, make them feel good and get them in a humor for working. Dr. Jimmy had a nigger overseer. They was digging a ditch and making a turnpike from Dr. Manson's place to Murfreesboro. They told grandpa to drive down in the ditch with his load of rock and let the white folks drive up on the dump. They was hauling and placing rock on the dump to make a turnpike. In Tennessee it was a law if a man owned a nigger he had to whoop him or have him whooped. If he didn't he had to sell him. They told grandpa if he didn't do as they said they would whoop him, then they said they would break his back. They took the fussing to Dr. Jimmy for him to whoop grandpa. He sold him to nigger traders and they drove him to Mississippi. Mother never seen him no more. Grandma died of grief. She had nine girls and no boys. After freedom seven went North and mama, was Jane, and Aunt Betty lived on in Tennessee, and I lived some in Mississippi. That's the reason I hate Mississippi to this very day.
"The day they fit on Stone River in Tennessee, brother Hood was born. He was born during the battle. I guess they moved off of Dr. Jimmy's place at freedom, for I was born on Jack Little's place.
"The times is passing faster than I want it to and I'm doing very well. I don't never meddle in young folks' business and I don't 'low them meddling in mine. Folks is the ones making times so hard. Some making times hard for all rest of us can't help ourselves. It is sin and selfishness makes times so hard. Young folks no worse than some not so very old. It ain't young folks making times hard. It's older ones so greedy. They don't have no happiness and don't want to see old ones live nor the young ones neither."
My people are all from Richmond, Virginia. I was just four years old when they come here. My father was in charge of all the machinery. He ran the gin. Didn't do anything else. My mother was a house girl. The kids learned her everything they learned in school. She knew everything. My father died when I was young. My mother lived till she was eighty. But the time she was fifty, I bought her a home and sat her down on Pulaski Street in that home. And that is why I have so little trouble.
"My ma belonged to Hoffman. He sold her to Wiley Adams. He carried her to Mississippi. She stayed there for a short time and then came to Arkansas. He settled in a little place called Tulip, Arkansas. Then freedom came and we came to Little Rock and settled at what is now Seventh and Ringo Streets; but then it was just a stage road leading to Benton, Arkadelphia, and other places. Stages passed twice a day with passengers and freight. No railroads at all then. The government kept the roads up. They had the arsenal hall where the city park is and had a regiment of soldiers there. The work on that road was kept up by the soldiers. That was under Grant's administration. I never saw but three presidents—three Democratic presidents—Cleveland, Wilson, and Roosevelt.
"My father's master was named Lee. He married my mother back in Virginia. My daddy's people when he was freed was named Taylor. He died when I was young and he never gave me any details about them.
Good Masters
"The Adamses were good to my mother. And they help her even after freedom. Charlie Adams and Mack Adams of Malvern, Arkansas. John was the sheriff and ran a store. Mack was a drummer for the Penzl Grocery. When my mother was ill, he used to bring her thirty dollars at a time. Every two months she had to go down to Malvern when she was well and carry an empty trunk and when she would come back it would be full. My mother was wet-nurse to the Adamses and they thought the world and all of her.