Zig-zaging across better than a mile of increasingly less thickly settled territory went the interviewer. The terrain was rolling—to put it mildly. During most of the walk her feet met the soft resistance of winter-packed earth. Sidewalks were the exception rather than the rule.
Wade Street, she had been told was "somewhere over in the Boulevard". Holding to a general direction she kept her course. "The Boulevard", known on the tax books of Hot Springs as Boulevard Addition, sprawls over a wide area. Houses vary in size and construction with startling frequency. Few of them are pretentious. Many appear well planned, are in excellent state of repair and front on yards, scrupulously neat, sometimes patterned with flower beds. Occasionally a building leans with age, roof caving and windows and doors yawning voids—long since abandoned by owners to wind and weather.
Up one hill, down another went the interviewer. Given a proper steer here and there by colored men and women—even children along the way, she finally found hereself in front of "that green house" belonging to Peach Sinclair.
Two colored women, middle aged, sat basking in the mild January sunlight on a back porch. "I beg your pardon," said the interviewer, approaching the step, "is this the home of Peach Sinclair, and will I find Mrs. Lou Fergusson here?"
"It sure is," the voice was cheerful. "My mother is in the house. Come around to the front," (the interviewer couldn't have reached the back steps, even if she had wanted to—the back yard was fenced from the front) "she's in the parlor."
Mrs. Lou turned out to be an incredibly black, unbelievably plump-cheeked, wide smiling "motherly" person. She seemed an Aunt Jemimah grown suddenly old, and even more mellow. "Mamma, this young lady's come to see you. She wants to talk to you and ask you some questions, about when—about before the war." (The situation is always delicate when an ex-slave is asked for details. Somehow both interviewer and interviewee avoid the ugly word whenever possible. The skillful interviewer can generally manage to pass it by completely, as well as any variant of the word negro. The informant is usually less squeamish. "Black folks," "colored folks", "black people", "Master's people", "us" are all encountered frequently.)
Five minutes of pleasant chatter preceeded the formal interview. Both Mrs. Sinclair and her guest (unintroduced) sat in on the conference and made comments frequently. "Law, child, we bought this place from your father. He was a mighty fine man." Mrs. Sinclair was delighted to find her guest to be "Jack Hudgins daughter." And later in the chat, "You done lost everything? Even your home—that's going? Too bad. But then I guess at that you're better off than we are. I've been trying for nearly a year to get my mother on the old age pension. They say she has passed. That was way along last March. Here it is January and she hasn't got a penny. No, I know you can't help. Yes, I see what you're doing. But if ever you does get on the pensions work—I'm going to 'hant'[A] you." (a wide grin) [A]
"Hant" was an intentional barbarism.
The old woman rocked and smiled. "Yes, ma'am. I'm her oldest, alive. She had 17 and 15 of them lived to grow up. But I'm about as old as she is, looks like. She never did have glasses—and today she can thread the finest needle. She can make as pretty a quilt as you'd hope to see. Makes fine stitches too. Seems like they made them stronger in her day." A nod of delighted approval from Mrs. Fergusson.
"I was born in Hempstead County, right here in this state. The town we were nearest was Columbus. I lived around there all of my life until I come here to be with my daughter. That was 15 years ago. Yes, I was born on a farm. From what I know, I'm over ninety. I was around 20 when the war ceaseted.
The man what owned us was named Ed Johnson. Yes, ma'am he had lots of folks. Was he good to us? Well, he was and he wasn't. He was good himself, wouldn't never have whipped us—but he had a mean wife. She'd dog him, and dog him until he'd tie us down and whip us for the least little thing. Then they put overseers over us. They was most generally mean. They'd run us out way fore day—even in the sleet—run us out to the field.
Was the life hard—well it was and it wasn't. No, ma'am, I didn't get much learning. Some folks wouldn't let their black folks learn at all. Then there was some which would let their children teach the colored children what they learned at school. We never learned very much.
You see, Master didn't live on the place. He lived bout as far as from here to town" (fully two miles) "The overseer looked after us mostly. No, ma'am I don't remember much about the war. You see, they was afraid that the fighting was going to get down there so they run us off to Texas. We settled down and made a crop there. How'd we get the land? Master rented it.
We made a crop down there and later we come back. No, ma'am we didn't stay with Mr. Johnson more than a month after there was peace. We come on in to Washington. No, ma'am, I never heard tell that Washington had been the Capitol of Arkansas for a while during the War. No, I never did hear that. Guess it was when we was in Texas. Then we folks didn't hear so much anyway.
We stayed in Washington most a year. Was I with my Mother? No, ma'am I was married—married before the war was thru. Married—does you know how we folks married in them days? Well the man asked your mother. Then you both asked your master. He built you a house. You moved in and there you was. You was married. I did some washing and cooking when I was in Washington. Then we moved onto a farm. I sort of liked Washington, but I was born on a farm and I sort of liked farm life.
We didn't move around very much—just two or three places. We raised cotton, corn, vegetables, peas, watermelons and lots of those sort of things. No ma'am, didn't nobody think of raising watermelons to ship way off like they does in Hempstead county now. Cotton was our cash crop. We rented thirds and fourths. Didn't move but three times. One place I stayed 15 years.
I been a widow 40 years. Yes, ma'am. I farmed myself, and my children helped me. Me and the owners got along well. Made good crops, me and the children. I managed to take good care of them. Made out to raise 15 out of the 17 to be grown. There's only 5 of them alive now.
Hard on a woman to run a farm by herself. Well now, I don't know. I made out. I raised my children and raised them healthy. I got along well with the farm owner. You might know when I was let to stay on one place for 15 years. You know I must have treated the land right and worked it fair.
Yes ma'am I remembers lots. Seems like women folks remembers better than men. I've got a good daughter. I'm still strong and can get about good. Guess the Lord has been good to me."
"I was born in Yellowbush County, Mississippi close to Grenada. Grandmother come from North Carolina. They wouldn't sell grandpa. He was owned by Laston. They never met again. She brought two boys with her. She was a Pernell. Her master brought her away and would have brought her husband but they wouldn't sell. She said durin' her forty years in slavery she never got a whoopin'. She was a field hand. After she come to Mississippi they was so good to her they called her free. She was a midwife. She doctored the rich white and colored. She rode horseback, she said, far and near. In Grenada after freedom she walked. They called her free her master was so good to her. I don't know how she learned to be a midwife. Her master was Henry Pernell. He owned a small place twelve miles from Grenada and another place in the Mississippi bottoms. My folks become renters after freedom. I don't know if they rented from him but I guess they did.
"The Ku Klux never bothered them that I ever heard them mention."
"My name is Frank Fikes. I live between El Dorado and Strong and I am 79 years old if I make no mistake. I know my mama told me years ago that I was born in watermelon time. She said she ate the first watermelon that got ripe on the place that year and it made her sick. She thought she had the colic. Said she went and ate a piece of calamus root for the pain and after eating the root for the pain behold I was born. So if I live and nothing happens to me in watermelon time I will be eighty this year. I was a boy at surrender about the age of fourteen or fifteen.
"My work was very easy when I was a little slave. Something got wrong with my foot when I first started to walking and I was crippled. I could not get around like the other children, so my work was to nurse all of the time. Sometimes, as fast as I got one baby to sleep I would have to nurse another one to sleep. We belonged to Mars Colonel Williams and he had I guess a hundred families on his place and nearly every family had a baby, so I had a big job after all. The rest of the children carried water, pine, drove up cows and held the calves off and made fires at old mar's house.
"I had to keep a heap fire so the boys wouldn't have to beat fire out of rocks and iron. Old miss did the cooking while all of the slaves worked. The slaves stood around the long back porch and ate. They ate out of wooden bowls and wooden spoons. They ate greens and peas and bread. And old miss fed all of us children in a large trough. She fed us on what we called the licker from the greens and peas with bread mashed in it. We children did not use spoons. We picked the bread out with our fingers and got down on our all fours and sipped the licker with our mouth. We all had a very easy time we thought because we did not know any better then.
"I never went to church until after surrender. Neither did we go to school but the white children taught me to read and count.
"I recollect as well today as if it had been yesterday the soldiers passing our house going to Vicksburg to fight. The reason I recollect it so well they all was dressed in blue suits with pretty gold buttons down the front. They passed a whole day and we watched them all day.
"Old miss and mars was not mean to us at all until after surrender and we were freed. We did not have a hard time until after we were freed. They got mad at us because we was free and they let us go without a crumb of anything and without a penny and nothing but what we had on our backs. We wandered around and around for a long time. Then they hired us to work on halves and man, we had a hard time then and I've been having a hard time ever since.
"Before the War we lived in log cabins. There was a row of log cabins a quarter of a mile long. No windows and no floor. We had grass to sit on. Our beds was made of pine poles nailed to the wall and we slept on hay beds. My mama and other slaves pulled grass and let it dry to make the beds with. Our cover was made from our old worn out clothes.
"On Sunday evenings we played. We put on clean clothes once a week. In summer we bathed in the branch. We did not bathe at all in winter. I went in my shirt tail until I was eleven or twelve years old. Back in slavery time boys did not wear britches. They wore shirts and our hair was long. The slaves say if you cut a child's hair before he or she was ten or twelve years old they won't talk plain until they are that old."
"I was born in Washington, Georgia. I come here in 1866. There was three stores in Marianna. My parents name Betsy and Bob Filer. My mother belong to Collins in Georgia. She come to this state with Colonel Woods. She worked in the field in Georgia and here too. Mama said they always had some work on hand. Work never played out. When it was cold and raining they would shuck corn to send to mill. The men would be under a shelter making boards or down at the blacksmith shop sharpening up the tools so they could work.
"Since we come to this state I've seen them make oak boards and pile them up in pens to dry out straight. I don't recollect that in Georgia. I was so little when we come here. I can recollect that but not much else. My brother was older. He might tell all about it."
[TR: Next section crossed out]
Interviewer's Comment
I didn't get to see his brother. I went twice more but he was at work on a farm somewhere.
[TR: Personal information moved from bottom of first page.]
[TR: In text of interview, informant's name is given as Orleana.]
Birth, Family, and Master
"I was born in Mississippi in Tippa County not far from the edge of Tennessee. I wasn't raised in Arkansas, but all my children was raised here. I really don't know just where in Tippa county I was born. My mother's name was Ann Toler. Toler was my step father. My real father, I don't know. My mother never told me nothin' bout him and I don't know that; I can't tell what I don't know.
"My grandfather on my mother's side was Captain Ellis. That is the one come after me when I was small to carry me back to my folks. I didn't know him, and I said 'I don't want to go 'way with them strange Niggers'. He's dead now. They're all dead long ago. I have got children over fifty years old myself. I am the mother of nine children—three of them living. One of the living ones is Arthur Finger. He lives in St. Louis. I expected to hear from him today, but didn't. Cornelius Finger. (He is a brownskin boy, spare made), lives in Palestine, Arkansas, near Forrest City. Arthur is my baby boy. Elmira was my baby girl. She's the one you met. She's married and has children of her own.
"Captain Ellis' wife was named Minerva. She was my mother's mother. She's been dead years. I got children older than she was when she died. She died in Mississippi. I got a cousin named Molly Spight. She's dead. My mother's sister was named Emmaline; she is dead now too.
"My mother was colored. I don't know nothin' about my father, and my mother never taught me nothin' 'bout him.
"My step father and mother were both field hands. They worked in the field.
"I don't know just when I was born, but I am just sure that it was before the war. I remember hearing people talk about things in the war.
"My mother's master was named Whitely, I think, because she was named Whitley before she married.
"I have been married three times. The first man I married was 'Lijah Gibbs. The second time I married, I married Joe Finger. The third time I married Will Reese. He warn't no husband at all. They're all dead. Folks always called me Finger after my second husband died, because I didn't live with my third husband long.
House
"They had log houses. You would never see no brick chimney nor nothing of that kind. The logs were notched down and kinda kivered flat—no roof like now. They might have rafters on them, but the top was almost flat. Wouldn't be any steep like they is now. In them times they wouldn't have many rooms. Sometimes they would have two. They wouldn't have so many windows. Just old dirt chimneys. They'd take and dig a hole and stick sticks up in it. Then they'd make up the dirt and put water in it and pull grass and mix it in the dirt. They'd build a frame on the sticks and then put the mud on. The chimney couldn't catch fire till the house got old and the mud would fall off. When it got old and the mud got to fallin off, then they would be a fire. I've seen that since I been in Arkansas.
"Sometimes they would get big rocks and put them inside the fireplace to take the place of bricks. You could get rocks in the forest.
Furniture
"Used to have ropes and they would cord the bed stead. The cords would act in place of springs. When you move you would have a heap of trouble because all that would have to be undone and done up again. You have to take the cords out and them put it together again. The cords would be run through the sides of the bed and stuck in with pegs.
"They used to have spinning wheels and looms. They made clothes and they made the cloth for the clothes and they spun the thread they made the cloth our of. They'd card and spin the thread. There's lots of other things I can't remember.
War Memories
"The Yankess used to come in and have the people cook for them. They'd kill chickens and geese and things. The old people used to take their horses out and tie them out in the woods—hiding them out to keep the Yankees from getting them. The Yankees would ride up, take a good horse and leave the old worn-out one.
"There never was any fighting round where I lived. None of my folks was soldiers in the war.
Right After the War
"I don't remember just what my folks did right after the war. They were field hands and I guess they did that. My mother worked in the field that's all I know.
Life Since the War
"I have been in Arkansas a long time. I have been here ever since I left Mississippi. My first marriage was in Mississippi. The second and last ones was in Arkansas—Forrest City. My second husband had been dead since 1921. I don't know that I count Reese. We married in June and separated in September. He's dead now, and I don't hold nothin' against him.
"I am not able to work now. I do a little 'round the house and dig a little in the garden. I haven't worked in the field since way before 1921. I don't get no help at all from the Welfare. My daughter does what she can for me. I always have lived before I ever heard about the old age pension and I suppose God will take care of me yet somehow.
Cured by Prayer
"I'm puny and no'count. Aint able to do much. But I was crippled. I had a hurting in my leg and I couldn't walk without a stick. Finally, one day I went to go out and pick some turnips. I was visiting my son in Palestine. My leg hurt so bad that I talked to the Lord about it. And it seemed to me, he said 'Put down your stick.' I put it down and I aint used it since. I put it down right thar and I aint used it since. God is a momentary God. God knowed what I wanted and he said, 'Put down that sick,' and I aint been crippled since. It done me so much good. Looks like to me when I get to talking about the Lord, aint nobody a stranger to me.
"I know I been converted but that made me stronger. My son is a siner. He knowed about how I was crippled. He said you ought use your stick. He didn't know what to think about it. Young folks don't believe because they aint had no experience with prayer and they don't know what can happen.
"I done told you all I know. I don't want to tell you anything I don't know. If you don't know nothing, it is best to say you don't."
Everything which Orleana Finger states has the earmarks of being true. There are a great many things which she does not state which I believe that she could state if she wished. She evidently has a long list of things which she things should be unmentioned. She has two magic phrases with which she dismisses all subjects which she does not wich to discuss:
"I don't remember that."
"I better quit talking now before I start lying."
"My master was Captain Baker Jones and his pa was John Jones. Miss Mariah was Baker Jones' wife. I believe the old man's wife was dead.
"My parents' name was Henry ("Clay") Harris and Harriett Harris. They had nine children. We lived close to the Post (Arkansas Post). Our nearest trading post was Pine Bluff. And the old man made trips to Memphis and had barrels sent out by ship. We lived around Hanniberry Creek. It was a pretty lake of water. Some folks called it Hanniberry Lake. We fished and waded and washed. We got our water out of two springs further up. I used to tote one bucket on my head and one in each hand. You never see that no more. Mama was a nurse and house woman and field woman if she was needed. I made fires around the pots and 'tended to mama's children.
"We lived on the Jones place years after freedom. I was born after freedom. We finally left. I cried and cried to let's go back. Only place ever seem like home to me yet. We went to the Cummings farm. They worked free labor then. Then we went to the hills. Then we seen hard times. We knowed we was free niggers pretty soon back in them poor hills.
"I was more educated than some white folks up in them hills. I went to school on the river. My teacher was a white man named Mr. Van Sang.
"Mama belong to the Garretts in Mississippi. She was sold when she was about four years old she tole me. There had been a death and old mistress bought her in. Master Garrett died. Then she give her to her daughter. She was her young mistress then. Old mistress didn't want her to bring her but she said she might well have her as any rest of the children. Mama never set eyes on none of her folks no more. Her father, she said, was light and part Enjun (Indian).
"John Prior owned papa in Kentucky. He sold him, brother and his mother to a nigger trader's gang. Captain Jones bought all three in Tennessee. He come brought them on to Arkansas. He was a field hand. He said they worked from daylight till after dark.
"They took their slaves to close to Houston, Texas to save them. Captain Jones said he didn't want the Yankees to scatter them and make soldiers of them. He brought them back on his place like he expected to do. Mama said they was out there three years. She had a baby three months old and the trip was hard on her and the baby but they stood it. I was her next baby after that. Freedom done been declared. Mama said they went in wagons and camped along the roadside at night.
"Before they left, the Yankees come. Old Master Jones treated them so nice, give them a big dinner, and opened up everything and offered some for them to take along that they didn't bother his stock nor meat. Then he had them (the slaves) set out with stock and supplies to Texas.
"Mama and papa said the Jones treated them pretty well. They wouldn't allow the overseers to beat up his slaves.
"The two Jones men put two barrels of money in a big iron chest. They said it weighed two hundred pounds. Four men took it out there in barrels and eight men lowered it. They took it to the family graveyard down past the orchard. They leveled it up like it was a grave. Yankees didn't get Jones money! Then he sent the slaves to Texas.
"Captain Jones had a home in Tennessee and one in Arkansas. Papa said he cleared out land along the river where there was panther, bears, and wild cats. They worked in huddles and the overseers had guns to shoot varmints. He said their breakfast and dinner was sent to the field, them that had wives had supper with their families once a day, on Sundays three times. The women left the fields to go fix supper and see after their cabins and children. They hauled their water in barrels and put it under the trees. They cooked washpots full of chicken and give them a big picnic dinner after they lay by crops and at Christmas. They had gourd banjos. Mama said they had good times.
"They had preaching one Sunday for white folks and one Sunday for black folks. They used the same preacher there but some colored preachers would come on the place at times and preach under the trees down at the quarters. They said the white preacher would say, 'You may get to the kitchen of heaven if you obey your master, if you don't steal, if you tell no stories, etc.'
"Captain Jones was a good doctor. If a doctor was had you know somebody was right low. They seldom had a doctor. Mama said her coat tail froze and her working. But they wore warm clothes next to their bodies.
"Captain Jones said, 'You all can go back on my place that want to go back and stay. You will have to learn to look after your own selves now but I will advise you and help you best I can. You will have to work hard as us have done b'fore. But I will pay you.' My folks was ready to 'board the wagons back to Jones' farm then. That is the way mama tole me it was at freedom! It was a long time I kept wondering what is freedom? I took to noticing what they said it was in slavery times and I caught on. I found out times had changed just b'fore I got into this world.
"Some things seem all right and some don't. Times seem good now but wait till dis winter. Folks will go cold and hungry again. Some folks good and some worse than in times b'fore."
Interviewer's Comment
Gets a pension check.
"I was born in Marshall County, Mississippi. Born during slavery. I b'long to Master John Rook. He died during the Civil War. Miss Patsy Rook raised me. I put on her shoes, made up her bed, fetched her water and kindling wood.
"My parents named Catherine and Humphrey Rook. They had three children.
"When Master John Rook died they divided us. They give me to Rodie Briggs. John and Lizzie was Master John's other two children. He had three children too same as ma. My young master was a ball player. I'd hear them talk. Ma was a good house girl. They thought we'd all be like 'er. When I was three years old, I was the baby. They took ma and pa off keep the Yankees from stealing then. Miss Patsy took keer me. When ma and pa come home I didn't know them a tall. They say when they come back they went to Louziana, then 'bout close to Monticello in dis state, then last year they run 'em to Texas.
"Pa was jus' a farmer. Gran'ma lived down in the quarters and kept my sisters. I'd start to see 'em. Old gander run me. Sometimes the geese get me down and flog me wid their wings. One day I climbed up and peeped through a crack. I seen a lot of folks chopping cotton. It looked so easy. They was singing.
"Betsy done the milking. I'd sit or stand 'round till the butter come. She ax me which I wanted, milk or butter. I'd tell her. She put a little sugar on my buttered bread. It was so good I thought Sometimes she'd fill my cup up with fresh churned milk.
"I et in the kitchen; the white folks et in the dining-room. I slep' in granny's house, in granny's bed, in the back yard. Granny's name was 'Aunt' Hannah. She was real old and the boss cook on our place. She learnt all the girls on our place how to cook. Kept one or two helping her all the time. It was her part to make them wash their faces every morning soon as they started a fire and keep their hands clean all the time er cooking. Granny wore her white apron around her waist all time. Betty would make them help her milk. They had to wash the cows udder before they ever milked a drop. Miss Patsy learnt her black folks to be clean. Every one of them neat as a pin sure as you born.
"I was so little I couldn't think they got whoopings. I never heard of a woman on the place being whooped. They all had their work to do. Grandma cut out and made pants for all the men on the whole farm.
"Old man Rook raised near 'bout all his niggers. He bought whiskey by the barrel. On cold mornings they come by our shop to get their sacks. I heard them say they all got a drink of whiskey. His hands got to the field whooping and singing. The overseers handed it out to them. The women didn't get none as I knowed of.
"The paddyrollers run 'em in a heap but Master John Rook never let them whoop his colored folks.
"We lived six miles from Holly Springs on the big road to Memphis. Seem like every regiment of Yankee and rebel soldiers stopped at our house. They made a rake-off every time. They cleaned us out of something to eat. They took the watches and silverware. The Yankees rode up on our porch and one time one rode in the hall and in a room. Miss Patsy done run an' hid. I stood about. I had no sense. They done a lot every time they come. I watched see what all they would do. They burnt a lot of houses.
"A little white boy said, 'I tell you something if you give me a watermelon.' The black man give the boy a big watermelon. He had a big patch. The boy said, 'My papa coming take all your money away from you some night.' He fixed and sure 'nough he come dressed like a Ku Klux. He had some money but they didn't find it. One of the Ku Kluxes run off and left his spurs. The colored folks killed some and they run off and leave their horses. They come around and say they could drink three hundred fifteen buckets of water. They throw turpentine balls in the houses to make a light. They took a ball of cotton and dip it in turpentine, light it, throw it in a house to make a light so they could see who in there. A lot of black folks was killed and whooped. Their money was took from them.
"The third year after the War ma and pa come and got me. They made a crop for a third. That was our first year off of Rook's place. I love them Rook's girls so good right now. Wish I could see them or knowd where to write. I had to learn my folks. I played with my sisters all my life but I never had lived with them. When pa come for me they had my basket full of dresses and warm underclothes, clean and ironed. They sent ma some sweet potatoes and two big cakes. One of them was mine. Miss Patsy said, 'Let Fannie come back to see my girls.' I went back and visited. Granny lived in her house and cooked till she died. I had a place with granny at her house. We went back often and we helped them after freedom. They was good white folks as ever breathed. There was good folks and bad folks then and still is.
"Times is hard. I was raised in the field. I made seven crops here—near Brinkley—with my son. I had two girls. One teaches in Brinkley, fourth or fifth grade; one girl works for a family in New York. My son fell off a tall building he was working on and bursted his head. He was in Detroit. Times is hard now. The young folks is going at too fast a gait. They are faster than the old generation. No time to sit and talk. On the go all the time. Hurrying and worrying through time. Hard to make a living."
"I was jes' a baby crawlin' 'round on the floor when War come" said "Gate-eye" Fisher, who lives in a log house covered with scraps of old tin, on what is known as the old Bullington farm near Lincoln. His one room log cabin is "down in the bresh" back of the barn and when new renters come on the place, they just take it for granted that "Gate-eye" just belongs. He bothers no one. No floors, no windows just a door, a bed, stove and a table. Yes and a lantern and a chair.
"Yes mam, my mother, Caroline, belonged to the Mister Dave Moore family. His wife, Miss Pleanie, was a Reagan. Yes mam, they was good folks. When the War come, my pa, Harrison Fisher and my ma stayed on the place, Mister Moore had lots of land and stock—and he and his folks went to Texas, nearly everybody did 'round here, and he took some of his fine stock with him but he called my pa and ma in and told them he wanted them to stay on the place and take care of all the things. Pa was boss over all the slaves. I guess mos' all my white folks is dead. Mos' of them all buried down yan way to Ft. Smith. One of Mister Moore's daughters, Miss Mary, married Dr. Davenport and Miss Sinth (Cynthia) went to live with her."
(The Moores came from Kentucky and Tennessee and settled at Cane Hill, Washington County, about 1829. The Reagans came about the same time. The first schools in the county were at Cane Hill).
"Yes mam, I guess all the colored folks that belonged to Mister Moore, but me, is dead. I guess. My mother, Caroline, stayed in the house nearly all the time and took care of Missy's children, and when they come home from school she'd hear them learn their ABC's. That's how come I can read and write. My ma taught me, out of an old Blue Back Speller. Yes mam, I learned to read and can't write much, jes my own name. Yes mam, I kinda believe in signs that's how come I wear this leather strap 'round my wrist it keeps me from havin' rheumatism, neuralgia. Yes mam, it helps. I used to believe in signs a lot and I used to believe in wishes. I used to wish a lot of bad wishes on folks till one day I read a piece from New York and it said the bad wishes that you made would come back to you wosser than you wished, so I don't wish no more. I got scared and don't wish nothin' to no body."
"After the War Ole Mister and Ole Missey called in my ma and pa and asked them if they wanted to still stay on the place or go somewhere. 'Bout ten of us stayed. Then a while after Mister Moore asked my pa if he wanted to go up on the Tilley place—600 acres and farm it for what he could make. We, my pa and my ma and my sister Mandy, stayed there a long time. Then Mister Moore sold off a little here and a little there and we moved up on the mountain with my sister and her husband, Peter Doss, where my ma died. Then I went down to Mister Oscar Moore's place—he was my Missey' boy."
"Yes mam, I did have a wife. I had a mos' worrysome time. It is a worrysome time when a man comes to takes your wife right away from you. No'm, I don't ever want her to come back."
"Yes'm, I do my own cooking, and I've put up some fruit. I have a little mite of meat, a little mite of taters, a little mite of beans and peas. I get a little pension too."
"These darkies today nearly all get wild. You can't tell What they are going to do tomorrow. They's jes like everybody—some awful good and some awful bad."
And in the tiny one room shack, of logs and tin, no window, a swing door held by a leather strap, "Gate-eye" does his cooking on a small wood stove. A long bench holds a lantern with a shingly clean globe, a lot of canned fruit, dried beans and peas. The bed is a series of old bed springs. But "Gate-eye" just belongs to the neighborhood, and every one feels kindly toward him. He says he is seventy-one years, past.
"Mama was named Anna Noles. Papa named Milias Noles. She belong to the Whitakers and he belong to Gibbs. Noles bought them both. They was both sold. Mother was born in Athens, papa somewhere in Kentucky. Their owners, the Noles, come to Aberdeen, Mississippi.
"Grandma, papa's mama, was killed with a battling stick. She was a slender woman, very tall and pretty, papa told me. She was at the spring, washing. They cut a tree off and make a smooth stump. They used a big tree stump for battling. They had paddles, wide as this (two hands wide—eight or ten inches) with rounded-off handle, smoothed so slick. They wet and soap the clothes, put em on that block-tree stump and beat em. Rub boards was not heard of in them days. They soaked the clothes, boiled and rinsed a heap. They done good washing. I heard em say the clothes come white as snow from the lye soap they used. They made the soap. They had hard soap and soft soap, made from ashes dripped and meat skins. They used tallow and mutton suet too. I don't know what was said, but I recken she didn't please her mistress—Mrs. Callie Gibbs. She struck her in the small part of her back and broke it. She left her at the spring. Somebody went to get water and seen her there. They took her to the house but she finally died. Grandpa was dead then. I recken they got scared to keep papa round then and sold him.
"I was born first year of the surrender. Moster Noles told them they was free. They didn't give them a thing. They was glad they was free. They didn't want to be in slavery; it was too tied down to suit em. They lived about places, do little work where they found it.
"We dodged the Ku Klux. One night they was huntin' a man and come to the wrong house. They nearly broke mama's arm pullin' her outen our house. They give us some trouble coming round. We was scared of em. We dodged em all the time.
"I was married and had a child eight years old fore I come to Arkansas. I come to Brinkley first. I was writing to friends. They had immigrated, so we immigrated here and been here ever since. When I come here there was two big stores and a little one. A big sawmill—nothing but woods and wild animals. It wasn't no hard times then. We had a plenty to live on.
"My husband was a saw mill hand and a railroad builder. He worked on the section. I nursed, washed, ironed, cooked, cleaned folks houses. We done about right smart. I could do right smart now if white folks hire me.
"The night my husband died somebody stole nearly every chicken I had. He died last week. We found out it was two colored men. I ain't needed no support till now. My husband made us a good living long as he was able to go. We raised a family. He was a tolerably dark sort of man. My girls bout his color."
The two grown girls were "scouring" the floor. Both of them said they were married and lived somewhere else.
Several "colored" districts are scattered throughout Hot springs. On Whittington, within a block of the First Presbyterian Church and St. Joseph's Infirmary stand the Roanok Baptist and the Haven Methodist (both for colored). Architecturally they compare favorably with similar edifices for whites. Their choirs have become nationally famous. Sunday afternoon concerts are frequent. Mid-week ones are not uncommon. At such times special sections are reserved for whites, and are usually filled. Visitors to the resort enjoy them immensely.
Across the street a one-time convent school has been converted into a negro apartment house. A couple of blocks up Whittington, Walnut veers to the right. It is paved for several blocks. Fronting on concrete sidewalks are houses, well painted and boasting yards which indicate pride in possession. Some are private homes, some rooming houses and some apartments. Porch flower boxes and urns are mostly of concrete studded with crystals.
Finding Henry Fitzhugh wasn't easy. The delivery boy at the corner chain store "knows everybody in the neighborhood" according to a passer-by. He offered the address 209. That number turned out to be an old, but substantial and well cared for two story house. Ringing the bell repeatedly brought no response.
A couple of women in the yard next door announced that to find Fitzhugh one had to "go around back and knock on the last door on the back porch." This procedure too brought no results. Another backyard observer offered the suggestion that Fitzhugh was probably down at the restaurant eating.
School had just been dismissed. Two well dressed negro children walked along together, swinging their books. "Can you tell me where the restaurant is?" asked the interviewer, stopping them. "Do you mean the colored restaurant?" one of the tots asked, not a whit of embarrassment in her manner, no servility, no resentment—just an ordinary question. "It's right over there."
The restaurant proved to be large, well lighted, scrupulously clean. Tables were well spaced and quite a distance from the counter. Sunshine streamed in from two directions. Fitzhugh was sitting just outside talking to the boot-black.
"Yes, ma'am, I's Henry Fitzhugh. Can't work no more since I got hit by an automoble. Before that I had a shoe-shine place myself. But I can't work no more. Yes 'um I gets the pension. I gets $10 a month. It's not much, but I sort of get by. I's got my room up at 209 and I gets my meals down here at the restaurant. Yes ma'am, pensions seem to be coming in pretty regular now.
Been in Hot Springs a long, long time. Come here in 1876. I remembers lots of the old families here. What yo say your name was? Your Mother was a Dengler? Sure, I remembers the Denglers. Mr. Dengler had a soda-water shop. I remembers him.
When I first come, soon as I was able, I cleaned up for Captain Mallard. Cleaned up all along Central in that block he was in.
How'd I come to Hot springs? I was sick. I had rheumatism. Was down with it so bad the doctor had done give me up. He'd stopped giving me medicine. But the lady I was working for, she run a hotel in Poplar Bluff. They put me on a stretcher and they put me in the baggage car and they brought me clean on in to Hot Springs. They bathed me at the free bath house. I started getting better right away. 'Twasn't long before I was well and able to work. I stayed right on here in Hot Springs.
Yes, ma'am I's all Arkansas. I was born near Little Rock. Ain't never been out of the state but twice. Then I didn't stay long.
I worked on a farm that belonged to Mr. J.B. Henderson. He was an uncle to Mr. Jerome Henderson what was in the bank and Mr. Jethro Henderson what was a Judge.
No, the war didn't bother us none. We wasn't afraid. We heard the shots, but it seemed just like a whole lot of fire crackers to us. Guess we just didn't have sense enough to be afraid. Fighting we did [HW: hear was] near Pine Bluff—the Baxter-Ware trouble. We seen the soldiers when they come through Mt. Pleasant, right smart bunch of them. They was Confederates. We didn't see none of the Yankees.
My father was killed during the war. Went off to help and never came back. My mother, she died when I was a baby. She was lying down in her cabin before the fire—lying on the hearth, letting me nurse. The door was open and a gust of wind blew her dress in the fire. She dropped me and she screamed and run out into the yard. Old Miss saw her from the house. She grabbed a quilt and started out. She got to my mother and she wrapped her in the quilt to smother out the fire. But my mother done swallowed fire. She died. That's the story they tell me. I was too little to know.
I guess I was about eleven when I went into the fields. What's that, pretty young? I didn't go because they made me. I went because I wanted to be with the men. Wasn't nobody around to play with. We was the only family on the farm. It was a pretty good sized farm and they had lots of children. There was Miss Sally and Miss Fanny and Miss Ella and Miss Myrtle and Miss Hattie. Then there was four boys.
Stayed on with the folks three years after the surrender. They treated me good and gave me what I wanted. Treated me nice—very nice—my white folks.
Then I went on down to Marshall—way down in Texas. There I worked for the high sheriff. Drove his carriage for him and cleaned up around the yard. I worked for him a whole year then I went back to Arkansas and then went up in Missouri. Wasn't there long before I got sick. I was working for a woman who had a hotel. She was good to me. Mighty good she was.
Yes ma'am. There has been lost chances I has had to do more than I has. But I's sort of satisfied. There's been lots of changes in Hot Springs since I come. I used to know all the white folks and all the colored folks too. Can't do that today. Place has got too big.
Joe Golden? Yes, I does—I knows Joe. He used to have a butcher shop over on Malvern. Quite a man, Joe was. I hasn't seen him in a long time. How is he? Pretty good? That's fine.
"I remembers Mc—McLeod's Happy Hollow." (Hot Spring nearest approach to a Coney Island in the earlier days). "I remembers that they used to have the old stage coach there what the James and Younger brothers held up. Sort of broken down it was, but it was there.
Law, law, them was the times. I'll never forget when Allen Roane brought in the news. Allen drove a sort of a hack. He come on into town and he whipped up his horse and he run all over town telling about the hold-up. Allen lived just next door to where I does now."
Down the street passed a colored woman, her head held high. Passing the porch where the aged negro man and the young white woman sat talking she paused and gave what was suspiciously like a sniff. Fitzhugh grinned. "She's sanctified," he explained.
"Did you ever hear of Tucky-Nubby? He was an Indian. Bob Hurley used to bring him to Hot Springs every year. What medicine shows they used to have here. Ain't seen nothing like it lately, everybody knowed Tucky-Nubby. Lots of those medicine shows—free shows, used to come here. But Bob Hurley and Tucky-Nubby was the most liked.
Yes, ma'am, I'm all alone now. My sister married a man a long, long time ago. She didn't live but a couple of years. I's had four children. One of them died when it was born. One died when it was three. One lived until it was seven. One son he lived to be grown. He went to the war. Got as far as camp. One day I got a word saying that he was sick. I went but before I could get there he had died. That left me alone.
What's that? Been married once? I been married eleven times. But it was ten times too many. Besides they is all dead, so you might say that I's been married only once.
Yes, ma'am. Thank you ma'am. The quarter will come in powerful handy. When you tries to make out on $10 a month a little extra comes in powerful handy. Thank you ma'am. I enjoyed talking to you, ma'am."