Chapter IX: Part 9

"Everybody used to sing. We worked from sun to sun; we courted and was happy. People not happy now. They are craving now. About four o'clock we all start up singing. Sing till dark."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Sarah Jane Patterson 2611 Orange Street, North Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 90

"I was born in Bartow County, Georgia, January 17, 1848. You can go there and look in that Bible over there and you will find it all written down. My mama kept a record of all our ages. Her old mistress kept the record and gave it to my mother after freedom.

Parents

"My parents were Joe Patterson and Mary Adeline Patterson. My mother's name before she married was Mary Adeline Huff. My grandfather on my mother's side was named Huff. My mother's sisters were Mahala, and Sallie. And them's the onliest two I remember. She had two brothers but I don't remember their names.

How Freedom Came

"I was living in Bartow County in north Georgia when freedom came. I don't remember how the slaves found it out. I remember them saying, 'Well, they's all free.' And that is all I remember. And I remember some one saying--asking a question, 'You got to say master?' And somebody answered and said, 'Naw.' But they said it all the same. They said it for a long time. But they learned better though.

Family

"I have brother Willis, Lizzie, Mary, Maud, and myself. There was four sisters and one brother. I had just one child--a boy. He lived to be a grown man and raised a family. His wife had three children and all of them is gone. The father, the mother, and the children. I was a woman. I wasn't no man. I just had one child, but the Lord blessed me. I have three sisters and a brother dead.

Master

"My old master's name was John Patterson and my old mistress was named Lucy Patterson. She had a son named Bill and a son named Tommy and a son named Charles, and a boy named Bob, and a girl named Marion. We are so for apart they can't help me none. I know Bob's boys are dead because they got killed in a fight in Texas.

Crippled in Slave Time

"I been crippled all my life. We was on the lawn playing and the white boy had been to the pond to water the horses. He came back and said he was going to run over us. We all ran and climbed up on the top of a ten rail fence. The fence gave 'way and broke and fell down with us. I caught the load. They all fell on me. It knocked the knee out of place. They carried me to Stilesboro to Dr. Jeffrey, a white doctor in slavery time. I don't know what he did, but he left me with my knee out of joint after he treated it. I can't work my toes and I have to walk with that stick.

Soldiers

"I was a tot when I seen the soldiers coming dressed in blue, and I run. They was very nice to the colored people, never beat 'em or nothin'. I was in Bartow County when they come through. They took a lot of things, but I can't remember exactly what it was. I 'tended to the children then--both the white and colored children, but mostly the white.

Good Masters

"My old master, John Patterson, never beat up the women and men he bossed.

Patrollers

"I have heard people talk about the pateroles raising sand with the niggers. Some of the niggers would say they got whipped. I was small. I would hear 'em say, 'The pateroles is out tonight.'

Ku Klux Klan

"I have seed the old Ku Klux. That was after freedom. They came 'round to my old master where my mama stayed. They were just after whipping folks. Some of them they couldn't whip.

Support

"I used to get a little money from Mr. Dent long as he was living. I would go over there and he would give me a dollar or two. Since he's been dead, his wife don't have much to give me. She gives me something to eat sometimes but she doesn't have any money now that her husband is dead.

"I can't get up to the Welfare. Crippled as I am, I can't walk up and down those stairs, and I can't git there nohow. I been tryin' to git some one to take me up there.

"Mr. Pratt helps me from time to time, but he ain't sent me nothin' now in a good while. He's right smart busy, but if I go to him, I spect he'll stir up somethin' for me.

Travels

"I wouldn't never a left Bartow County, but the white people made out that this was a rich country and you could make so much out here, and we moved out here. We was young then. We came out on the train. It was a long time back but it was too far to came on a wagon. I don't remember just how long ago it was.

Occupation

"I used to quilt until my fingers got too stiff. I got some patterns in there now if you want to see them."

Interviewer's Comment

The old lady took me in the house and showed me about a dozen quilts, beautifully patterned and made. She had also some unfinished tops. She says that she does not have much of a sale for them now because the "quality of folks" who liked such things well enough to buy them "is just about gone."

She is crippled and unable to walk with facility. She has a great deal of difficulty in getting off and on her porch. Still she does not impress one as feeble so much as just disabled in one or two particulars. She has a crippled knee, and both of her hands are peculiarly stiff in the finger joints, one more so than the other. If it were not for the disabilities, as old as she is, I believe that she could give a good account of herself.

I didn't have the heart to tell the old lady that her Bible record is not what she thinks it is. It is not the old original record which her mistress possessed. Neither is it the copy of the record of her mistress which her mother kept. From questioning, I gather that the old mistress dictated the original record to some one connected with her mother, might have written it out herself on a sheet of paper. From time to time, as new deaths and births occurred, scraps of paper containing them were added to the first paper, and as the papers got worn, blurred, and dog-eared, they were copied--probably not without errors. Time came when the grandchildren up in the grades and with _semi-modern_[HW:?] ideas copied the scraps into the family Bible. By that time aging and blurring of the original lead pencil notes, together with recopying, had invalidated the record till it is no longer altogether reliable.

The births recorded in the Bible are as follows and in the exact order given below:

Mary Patterson 10-11-1866
Harris Donesson 3-13- 72
Lilley Donesson 7-21- 85
Pearly Donesson 3-29- 92
Silvay Williams 8-29- 84
Beney Williams 11-24- 85
Millia A. Williams 12-30- 88
Joe Patterson 10- 3- 77
H. Patterson 7-29- 79
Maria E. Patterson 11-19- 81
Jennie Patterson 12-24- 84
Alex Patterson 7- 5- 86
James Patterson 6-20- 90
Janie Patterson 1-27- 60
Amanda Patterson 1-28- 63
James Rafield Walker 8-11- 99
Cornelius Walker 7-21-1902
Willie Walker 11-20- 03
Elias Walker 7-21- 11
Emmet Brown 1-23- 22
Leon Harris 12-13- 21

The following marriages were given:

May Lee Brown 2-26-1926
James Walker Brown 2-21- 35
Jennie Walker 6-20- 15
Lillie Jean Walker 12-6- 36

The name of Sarah Jane Patterson is not in the list. The list itself is not chronological. It is written in ink but in the stiff cramped hand to be expected of a school child not yet thoroughly familiar with the pen. The eye fixes on the name of Janie Patterson, 1-27-1860. It does not seem probable that this is correct if it is meant to be Sarah Jane. Sarah Jane could give no help except to answer questions about the manner in which the record was made.

These considerations led me to set the record aside in my own mind so far as Sarah Jane Patterson's age is concerned and to take her word. She has a very clear conception of the change from slavery to freedom. Her memories are blurred and indistinct, but she recollects that this matter was during slavery times and that during freedom. It seems that she had the care of the smaller children during slavery time--at the time she saw the soldiers marching through. This was not during the time of freedom, because she distinguished clearly the Ku Klux time. She would have to be at least eighty to have cared for children. Her tenacious memory of ninety may have some foundation, therefore.

Moreover where writing is done in lead pencil and hurriedly, six is often made to look like four and a part of eight may become blurred till it looks like a zero. That would account for 1848 being transcribed as 1860. There would be nothing unusual, however, in a Sarah Jane and a Jane. I neglected to cover that point in a question.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor Person interviewed: Solomon P. Pattillo 1502 Martin Street, Little Rock, Arkansas Age: 76 Occupation: Formerly farmer, teacher, and small dealer--now blind

"I was born November 1862. I was three years old at the time of the surrender. I was born right here in Arkansas--right down here in Tulip, Dallas County, Arkansas. I have never been out of the state but twice.

Refugeeing

"My daddy carried me out once when they took him to Texas during the war to keep the Yanks from setting him free.

"Then I went out once long after slavery to get a load of sand. On the way back, my boat nearly sank. Those are the only two times I ever left the state.

Parents

"My father's name was Thomas Smith, but the Pattillos bought him and he took the name of Pattillo. I don't know how much he sold for. That was the only time he was ever sold. I believe that my father was born in North Carolina. It seems like to me I recollect that is where he said he was born.

"My mother was born in Virginia. I don't know how she got here unless she was sold like my father was. I don't know her name before she got married. Yes, I do; her name was Fannie Smith, I believe.

Houses

"We lived in old log cabins. We had bedsteads nailed to the wall. Then we had them old fashioned cordboard springs. They had ropes made into springs. That was a high class bed. People who had those cord springs felt themselves. They made good sleeping. My father had one. Ropes were woven back and forth across the bed frame.

"We had those old spinning wheels. Three cuts was a day's work. A cut was so many threads. It was quite a day to make them. They had hanks too. The threads were all linked together.

"My mother was a spinner. My father was a farmer. Both of them worked for their master,--old Massa, they called him, or Massa, Mass Tom, Mass John or Massta.

War Recollections

"I remember during the war when I was in Texas with a family of Moody's how old Mistiss had me packing rocks out of the yard in a basket and cleaning the yard. I didn't know it then, but my daddy told me later that that was when I was in Texas,--during the war. I remember that I used to work in my shirt tail.

"The soldiers used to come in the house somewhere and take anything they could get or wanted to take.

Pateroles

"When I was a boy they had a song, 'Run, Nigger, run; The Pateroles will get you.' They would run you in and I have been told they would whip you. If you overstayed your time when your master had let you go out, he would notify the pateroles and they would hunt you up and turn you over to him.

Church Meetings

"Way long then, my father and mother used to say that man doesn't serve the Lord--the true and living God and let it be known. A bunch of them got together and resolved to serve Him any way. First they sang in a whisper, 'Come ye that love the Lord.' Finally they got bold and began to sing in tones that could be heard everywhere, 'Oh for a thousand tongues to sing my Great Redeemer's praise.'

After the War

"After the war my father fanned--made share crops. I remember once how some one took his horse and left an old tired horse in the stable. She looked like a nag. When she got rested up she was better than the one that was took.

"His first farm was down here in Dallas County. He made a share crop with his former master, Pattillo. He never had no trouble with him.

Ku Klux

"I heard a good deal of talk about the Ku Klux Klan, but I don't know anything much about it. They never bothered my father and mother. My father was given the name of being an obedient servant--among the best help they had.

"My father farmed all his life. He died at the age of seventy-two in Tulip, near the year 1885, just before Cleveland's inauguration. He died of typhoid pneumonia. My mother was ninety-six years old when she died in 1909.

Little Rock

"I came to Little Rock in 1894. I came up here to teach in Fourche Dam. Then I moved here. I taught my first school in this county at Cato. I quit teaching because my salary was so poor and then I went into the butcher's business, and in the wood business. I farmed all the while.

"I taught school for twenty-one years. I always was a successful teacher. I did my best. If you contract to do a job for ten dollars, do as much as though you were getting a hundred. That will always help you to get a better job.

"I have farmed all my life in connection with my teaching. I went into other businesses like I said a moment ago. I was a caretaker at the Haven of Rest Cemetery for sometime.

"I was postmaster from 1904 to 1911 at Sweet Home. At one time I was employed on the United States Census.

"I get a little blind pension now. I have no other means of support.

Loss of Eyes

"The doctor says I lost my eyesight on account of cataracts. I had an operation and when I came home, I got to stirring around and it caused me to have a hemorrhage of the eye. You see I couldn't stay at the hospital because it was costing me $3 a day and I didn't have it. They had to take one eye clean out. Nothing can be done for them, but somehow I feel that the lord's going to let me see again. That's the way I feel about it.

"I have lived here in this world this long and never had a fight in my life. I have never been mistreated by a white man in my life. I always knew my place. Some fellows get mistreated because they get out of their place.

"I was told I couldn't stay in Benton because that was a white man's town. I went there and they treated me white. I tried to stay with a colored family way out. They were scared to take me. I had gone there to attend to some business. Then I went to the sheriff and he told me that if they were scared to have me stay at their home, I could stay at the hotel and put my horse in the livery stable. I stayed out in the wagon yard. But I was invited into the hotel. They took care of my horse and fed it and they brought me my meals. The next morning, they cleaned and curried and hitched my horse for me.

"I have voted all my life. I never had any trouble about it.

"The Ku Klux never bothered me. Nobody else ever did. If we live so that everybody will respect us, the better class will always try to help us."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Carry Allen Patton Forrest City, Arkansas Age: 71

"I was born in Shelby County, Tennessee. My parents was Tillie Watts and Pierce Allen. He come from Louisiana reckly (directly) after the surrender. My mother come from Virginia. She was sold in Virginia and brought to middle Tennessee close to Murfreesboro and then brought to Memphis and sold. She was dark and my father was too. They was living close to Wilmar, Arkansas when the yellow fever was so bad. I don't remember it. Heard them talk about it.

"I heard my mother say how Mr. Jake Watts saved his money from the Yankees. They had a great big rock flat on both sides. They put on the joints of big meat to weight it down when they salted it down in a barrel. They didn't unjoint the meat and in the joint is where it started to spoil. Well, he put his silver and gold in a pot. It was a big round pot and was smaller around the top. He dug a hole after midnight. He and his two boys James and Dock put the money in this hole in the back yard. They covered the pot with the big flat rock and put dirt on that and next morning they planted a good big cedar tree over the rock, money and all.

"Old Master Jake died during the War and their house was burned but James lived in one of the cabins in the yard. Dock went to the War. My mother said when they left, that tree was standing.

"My mother run off. She thought she would go cook for the men in the camps but before she got to the camps a wagon overtook her and they stole her. They brought her to Memphis and sold her on a block. They guarded her. She never did know who they was nor what become of them. They kept her in the wagon on the outskirts of the city nearly a month. One man always stayed to watch her. She was scared to death of both of them. One of the men kept a jug of whiskey in the wagon and drunk it but he never would get dead drunk so she could slip off.

"Mr. Johnson bought her and when the surrender come on, Master Johnson took his family and went to Texas. She begged him to take her to nurse but he said if it wasn't freedom he would send her back to Master James Watts and he would let her go back then. He give her some money but she never went back. She was afraid to start walking and before her money give clear out she met up with my father and he talked her out of going back.

"She had a baby pretty soon. It was by them men that stole her. He was light. He died when he got nearly grown. I recollect him good. I was born close to Memphis, the boy died of dysentery.

"When my mother was sold in Virginia she was carried in a wagon to the block and thought she was going to market. She never seen her folks no more. They let them go along to market sometimes and set in the wagon. She had a little pair of gloves she wore when she was sold her grandma had knit for her. They was white, had half thumb and no fingers. When she died I put them in her coffin. She had twins born dead besides me. They was born close to Wilmar, Arkansas.

"We farmed all my life in Arkansas and Mississippi. I married in Mississippi and we come back here before Joe died. I live out here and in Memphis. My son is a janitor at the Sellers Brothers Store in Memphis. My daughter cooks about here in town and I keep her children. I rather farm if I was able.

"I think young folks, both colors, shuns work. Times is running away with itself. Folks is living too fast. They ride too fast and drinks and do all kinds of meanness.

"My father was a mighty poor hand at talking. He said he was sold in a gang shipped to Memphis from New Orleans. Master Allen bought him. He was a boy. I don't know how big. He cleaned fish--scaled them. He butchered and in a few months Mr. Allen set him free. It was surrender when he was sold but Mr. Allen didn't know it or else he meant to keep him on a few years. When he got loose he started farming and farmed till he died. He farmed in Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas. He owned a place but a drouth come along. He got in debt and white folks took it.

"I married in Mississippi. My husband immigrated from South Carolina. He was Joe Patton. I washed and ironed and farmed. I rather farm now if I was able.

"I never got no gov'ment help. I ain't posing it. It is a fine thing. I was in Tennessee when it come on. They said I'd have to stay here six months. I never do stay."

Interviewer: Mrs. Annie L. LaCotts Person interviewed: Harriett McFarlin Payne Dewitt, Arkansas Age: 83

"Aunt Harriett, were you born in slavery time?"

"Yes, mam! I was big enough to remember well, us coming back from Texas after we refugeed there when the fighting of the war was so bad at St. Charles. We stayed in Texas till the surrender, then we all come back in lots of wagons. I was sick but they put me on a little bed and me and all the little chillun rode in a 'Jersey' that one of the old Negro mammies drove, along behind the wagons, and our young master, Colonel Bob Chaney rode a great big black horse. Oh! he nice-looking on dat horse! Every once and awhile he'd ride back to the last wagon to see if everything was all right. I remember how scared us chillun was when we crossed the Red River. Aunt Mandy said, 'We crossin' you old Red River today, but we not going to cross you any more, cause we are going home now, back to Arkansas.' That day when we stopped to cook our dinner I picked up a lot little blackjack acorns and when my mammy saw them she said, 'Throw them things down, chile. They'll make you wormy.' (I cried because I thought they were chinquapins.) I begged my daddy to let's go back to Texas, but he said, 'No! No! We going with our white folks.' My mama and daddy belonged to Col. Jesse Chaney, much of a gentleman, and his wife Miss Sallie was the best mistress anybody ever had. She was a Christian. I can hear her praying yet! She wouldn't let one of her slaves hit a tap on Sunday. They must rest and go to church. They had preaching at the cabin of some one of the slaves, and in the Summertime sometimes they had it out in the shade under the trees. Yes, and the slaves on each plantation had their own church. They didn't go galavanting over the neighborhood or country like niggers do now. Col. Chaney had lots and lots of slaves and all their houses were in a row, all one-room cabins. Everything happened in that one room,--birth, sickness, death and everything, but in them days niggers kept their houses clean and their door yards too. These houses where they lived was called 'the quarters'. I used to love to walk down by that row of houses. It looked like a town and late of an evening as you'd go by the doors you could smell meat a frying, coffee making and good things cooking. We were fed good and had plenty clothes to keep us dry and warm.

"Along about time for de surrender, Col. Jesse, our master, took sick and died with some kind of head trouble. Then Col. Bob, our young master, took care of his mama and the slaves. All the grown folks went to the field to work and the little chillun would be left at a big room called the nursing home. All us little ones would be nursed and fed by an old mammy, Aunt Mandy. She was too old to go to the field, you know. We wouldn't see our mammy and daddy from early in the morning till night when their work was done, then they'd go by Aunt Mandy's and get their chillun and go home till work time in the morning.

"Some of the slaves were house negroes. They didn't go to work in the fields, they each one had their own job around the house, barn, orchard, milk house, and things like that.

"When washday come, Lord, the pretty white clothes! It would take three or four women a washing all day.

"When two of de slaves wanted to get married, they'd dress up nice as they could and go up to the big house and the master would marry them. They'd stand up before him and he'd read out of a book called the 'discipline' and say, 'Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with all thy heart, all thy strength, with all thy might and thy neighbor as thyself.' Then he'd say they were man and wife and tell them to live right and be honest and kind to each other. All the slaves would be there too, seeing the 'wedden'.

"Our Miss Sallie was the sweetest best thing in the world! She was so good and kind to everybody and she loved her slaves, too. I can remember when Uncle Tony died how she cried! Uncle Tony Wadd was Miss Sallie's favorite servant. He stayed in a little house in the yard and made fires for her, brought in wood and water and just waited on the house. He was a little black man and white-headed as cotton, when he died. Miss Sallie told the niggers when they come to take him to the grave yard, to let her know when they got him in his coffin, and when they sent and told her she come out with all the little white chillun, her little grandchillun, to see Uncle Tony. She just cried and stood for a long time looking at him, then she said, 'Tony, you have been a good and faithful servant.' Then the Negro men walked and carried him to the graveyard out in a big grove in de field. Every plantation had its own graveyard and buried its own folks, and slaves right on the place.

"If all slaves had belonged to white folks like ours, there wouldn't been any freedom wanted."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: John Payne Brinkley, Ark. Age: 74

"I was born in Georgia, close to Bowles Spring, in Franklin County. My mama's master was Reverend David Payne. He was a Baptist preacher. My mama said my father was Monroe Glassby. He was a youngster on a neighboring plantation. He was white. His father was a landowner. I think she said it was 70 miles east of Atlanta where they went to trade. They went to town two or three times a year. It took about a week to go and come.

"From what Mama said they didn't know it was freedom for a long time. They worked on I know till that crop was made and gathered. Somebody sent word to the master, Rev. David, he better turn them slaves loose. Some of the hands heard the message. That was the first they knowed it was freedom. My mama said she seen soldiers and heard fighting. She had heard that if the Yankees won the war all the slaves be free. She set to studyin' what she would do. She didn't know what to do. So when she heard it she asked If she had to be free. She told Rev. David she wanted to stay like she had been staying. After I was up a good size boy we went to Banks County. She done house work and field work too and I done farm work. All kinds and from sun-up till dark every day. Sometimes I get in so late I have to make a torch light to see how to put the feed in the troughs. We had plenty litard--pine knots--they was rich to burn.

"I used to vote but I quit since I come to Arkansas. I come in 1902. I paid my own way and wrote back for my family. I paid their way too. I got one little grandaughter, 20 years old. She is off trying to make her way through college. My wife had a stroke and she can't do much no more. I got a piece of a house. It need repairs. I can't hardly pay my taxes. I can't work much. I got two cows and six little pigs. I got eighty acres land. I worked fourteen years for John Gazolla and that is when I made enough to buy my place. I am in debt but I am still working. Seems like one old man can't make much."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person Interviewed: Larkin Payne Brinkley, Ark. Age: 85

"I was born in North Carolina. I don't recall my moster's name. My parents was Sarah Hadyn and John Payne. They had seven children. None of them was sold. My pa was sold. He had three sons in the Civil War. None of em was killed. One was in the war four years, the others a good portion of two years. They was helpers.

"Grandma bought grandpa's, freedom. My great grandma was an Indian woman. My mother was dark brown. My father was tolerable light. When I was small child they come in and tell bout people being sold. I heard a whole lot about it that way. It was great grandma Hadyn that was the Indian. My folks worked in the field or anywhere as well as I recollect.

"When freedom come on my folks moved to East Tennessee. I don't know whether they got good treatment or not. They was freedom loving folks. The Ku Klux never bothered us at home. I heard a lot of em. They was pretty hot further south. I had two brothers scared pretty bad. They went wid some white men to South Carolina and drove hogs. The white men come back in buggies or on the train--left them to walk back. The Ku Klux got after them. They had a hard time getting home. I heard the Ku Klux was bad down in Alabama. They had settled down fore I went to Alabama. I owned a home in Alabama. I took stock for it. Sold the stock and come to Arkansas. I had seven children. We raised three.

"When my folks was set free they never got nothing. The mountain folks raised corn and made whiskey. They made red corn cob molasses; it was good. They put lye in the whiskey; it would kill you. They raised hogs plenty. My folks raised hogs and corn. They didn't make no whiskey. I seen em make it and sell it too.

"I heard folks say they rather be under the home men overseers than Northern overseers. They was kinder to em it seem like. I was jes beginnin' to go to the field when freedom come on. I helped pile brush to be burned before freedom. I farmed when I was a boy; pulled fodder and bundled it. I shucked corn, slopped pigs, milked, plowed a mule over them rocks, thinned out corn. I worked twenty days in East Tennessee on the section. I cut and haul wood all winter.

"My parents both died in Arkansas. We come here to get to a fine farmin' country. We did like it fine. I'm still here.

"I have voted. I vote if I'm needed. The white folks country and they been runnin' it. I don't want no enemies. They been good to me. I got no egercation much. I sorter follows bout votin'. We look to the white folks to look after our welfare.

"I get $8.00 and commodities. I work all I can git to do."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Cella Perkins Marvell and Palestine, Arkansas Age: 67

"I was born close to Macon, Georgia. Mama's old mistress, Miss Mari (Maree) Beth Woods, brung her there from fifteen miles outer Atlanta.

"After emancipation Miss Mari Beth's husband got killed. A horse kicked him to death. It shyed at something and it run in front of the horse. He held the horse so it couldn't run. It kicked the foot board clean off, kicked him in the stomach. His boy crawled out of the buggy. That's the way we knowed how it happened. She didn't hurt the boy. His name was Benjamin Woods.

"Pa went to war with his master and he never come back to mama. She never heard from him after freedom. He got captured and got to be a soldier and went 'way off. She didn't never know if he got killed or lost his way back home.

"Mama cooked and kept up the house. Miss Mari Beth kept a boarding house in Macon till way after I was a big girl. I stood on a box and washed dishes and dried them for mama.

"Mr. Ben was grown when we come to Arkansas. He got his ma to go to Kentucky with him and I heard about Arkansas. Me and mama come to Palestine. We come in a crowd. A man give us tickets and we come by our lone selves till we got to Tennessee. A big crowd come from Dyersburg, Tennessee. Ma got to talking and found out we was headed fo' the same place in Arkansas.

"Ma talked a whole heap at tines more 'an others (times) about slavery times. Her master didn't take on over her much when he found out she was a barren woman. The old man Crumpton give her to his youngest daughter, Miss Mari Beth. She always had to do all kinds of work and house turns.

"After mama's slavery husband didn't come back and she was living in Macon, she fell in love with another man and I was a picked-up baby. Mama said Miss Mari Beth lost faith in her when I was born but she needed her and kept her on. Said seem like she thought she was too old to start up when she never had children when her papa owned her. They didn't like me. She said she could trust mama but she didn't know my stock. He was a black man. Mama was black as I is.

"Miss Mari Beth had a round double table. The top table turned with the victuals on it. I knocked flies three times a day over that table.

"I never had a store-bought dress in my life till mama bought me one at Madison, Arkansas. I wanted a pure white dress. She said if we made a good crop she was going to give me a dress. All the dresses I ever had was made out of Miss Mari Beth's dresses but I never had a pure white one. I never had one bought for me till I was nearly grown. I was so proud of it. When I would go and come back, I would pull it off and put it away. I wore it one summer white and the next summer I blued it and had a new dress. I had a white dress nearly every year till I got too old to dress up gay now. I got a white bonnet and apron I wears right now.

"Mama said Master Crumpton bought up babies to raise. She was taken away from her folks so soon she never heard of them. Aunt Mat raised her up in Atlanta and out on his place. He had a place in town but kept them on a place in the country. He had a drove of them. He hired them out. He hired mama once to a doctor, Dr. Willbanks. Mama said old master thought she would learn how to have children from him the reason he sent her there so much. When they had big to-dos old master sent mama over there. She never seen no money till about freedom. She loved to get hired out to be off from him. They all had young babies about but her. He was cross and her husband was cross. She had pleasure hired out. She said he didn't whoop much. He stamped his foot. They left right now.

"I hab three girls living; one here (Palestine), one at Marvell, and one in St. Louis. My youngest girl teaches music at a big colored school. She sends me my money and I lives with these girls. I been up there and I sure don't aim to live in no city old as I is. It's too dangerous slow as I got to be and so much racket I never slept a night I was there. I was there a month. She brung me home and I didn't go back.

"I cooked and washed and ironed and worked in the field. I do some work yet. I helps out where I am.

"The times is better I think from accounts I hear. This generation all living too fast er lives. They don't never be still a minute."

Pine Bluff District FOLKLORE SUBJECTS Name of Interviewer: Martin & Barker Subject: Ex-Slaves--Slavery Times

This Information given by: Maggie Perkins Place of Residence: W. 6th. St. [TR: Information moved from bottom of first page.]

My folks lived in S. Carolina and belonged to Col. Bob Baty and his family.

If I should lay down tonight I could tell when my folks were going to die, because the Lawd would tell me in a vision.

Just before my grandmother died, I got up one morning and told my aunt that granma was dead. Aunt said she did not want me telling lies.

Then I saw another aunt laying on the bed, and she had her hand under her jaw. She was smiling. The house was full of people. After awhile they heard that her aunt was dead too, and after that they paid attention to me when I told them somebody was going to die.

I'se a member of the Holiness Church. I believes step up right and keep the faith.

I seen my aunt walking up and down on a glass. The Lawd tells me in a vision to step right up and see the faith.

I am living in Jesus. He is coming to Pine Bluff soon. He is going to separate the lions from the sheep.

I was born in slavery times. I member folks riding around on horses.

Them days I used to wash my mistis feet and legs, and sometimes I would fall asleep against my mistis knees. I tells the young fry to give honor to the white folks, and my preacher tell 'em to obey the white folks, dat dey are our best friends, dey is our dependence and it would be hard getting on if we didn't have em to help us.

Spirits--Me and my husband moved into a house that a man, "uncle Bill" Hearn died in, and we wanted dat house so bad we moved right in as soon as he was taken out, we ate supper and went to bed.

By the time we got to sleep we heard sounds like someone was emptying shelled corn, and I hunched up under my husband scared to death and then moved out the next day. The dead haven't gone to Heaven. When death comes, he comes to your heart. He has your number and knows where to find you. He won't let you off, he has the key.

Death comes and unlocks the heart and twists the breath out of that heart and carries it back to God.

Nobody has gone to Heaven, no one can get pass Jesus until the day of his redemption, which is judgement day.

We can't pass the door without being judged. On the day of ressurection the trumpet will sound and us will wake up out of he graveyard, and come forth to be judged. The sea shall give up its dead. Every nation will have to appear before God and be judged in a twinklin of an eye. If you aren't prepared before Jesus comes, it will be too late. God is everywhere, he is the almight. God is a nice God, he is a clean God, he is a good God. I would be afraid to tell you a lie for God would strike me down.

Eight years ago I couldn't see, I wore specs 3 years. I forgot my specs one morning, I prayed for my eyesight and it was restored that morning.

Our marster was a good man. De overseers sometimes wuz bad, but dey did not let marsters know how dey treated their girl slaves. My grandmother was whipped by de overseers one time, it made welts on her back. My sister Mary had a child by a white man.

To get joy in de morning, get up and pray and ask Him to bless you. God will feed all alike, he is no respector of persons. He shows no extra favors twixt de rich and de poor.

Interviewer: Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Marguerite Perkins West Sixth and Catalpa Streets, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 81

"I was born in slavery times, Miss. I was born in South Carolina, Union County. I was born in May.

"I know I 'member old Missy. I just been washin' her feet and legs when they said the Yankees was comin. Old Miss' name was Miss Sally. Her husband was a colonel. What is a colonel?

"I got some white cousins. They tell me they was the boss man's chillun.

"Yes'm, I reckon Miss Sally was good to me. I'm a old nigger. All us niggers belonged to Colonel Beatty. I went to school a little while but I didn't learn nothin'.

"I use to be a nurse girl and sleep right upstairs.

"Missus, you know people just walkin along the street droppin dead with heart trouble and white women killin men. I tell you lady it's awful.

"I been married just once. The Lord took him out o' my house one Sunday morning 'fore day.

"The thing about it is I got that high blood pressure. Well, Missus, I had it five years ago and I went to Memphis and the Lord healed me. All we got to do is believe in the Lord and He will put you on your feet.

"I had four sisters and three brothers and all of 'em dead but me, darlin.

"Now let me tell you somethin'. Old as I is, I ain't never been to but one picture show in my life. Old as I is, I never was on a base ball ground in my life. The onliest place I go now is to church."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Rachel Perkins, Goodwin, Arkansas Age: ? Baby during the Civil War

"I was born in Greensboro, Alabama. Sallie Houston and Peter Houston was my parents. They had two girls and a boy. They died when they was small, but me. They always told me mother died when I was three days old in the cradle. I don't fur a fact know much about my own people. Miss Agnes took me to raise me fur a house girl. She nursed me wid her Mary. My mother's and father's owners was Alonso Brown and Miss Agnes Brown. Their two girls was Mary and Lucy and their three boys was Bobby, Jesse, and Frank. Miss Agnes rocked the babies to sleep in a big chair out on the gallery. We slept there all night. Company come and say, 'Where the babies?' Miss Agnes take them back and show us off. They say, 'Where the little black chile?' They'd try to get me to come go live wid them. They say they be good to me. I'd tell 'em, 'No, I stay here.' It was good a home as I wanted. We slept on the front gallery till Lucy come on, then we had sheep skin pallets. She got the big chair. She put us out there because it was cool.

"I left Miss Agnes when I got to be my own woman. Didn't nobody toll me off. I knowed I ought to go to my own race of people. They come after me once. Then they sent the baby boy after me what I had nursed. I wanted to go but I never went. Miss Lucy and Miss Mary both in college. It was lonesome for me. I wanted to go to my color. I jus' picked up and walked on off.

"My girl is half Indian. I'm fifteen years older than my girl. Then I married Wesley Perkins, my husband. He is black fur a fact. He died last fall. I married at my husband's brother's by a colored preacher. Tom Screws was his name. He was a Baptist preacher.

"I never went to school a day in my life. I can't read. I can count money. Seem lack it jus' come natural. I never learned it at no one time. It jus' come to me.

"In warm weather I slept on the gallery and in cold weather I slept by the fire. I made down my own bed. I cleaned the house. I took the cows off to the pasture. I nursed the babies, washed and dried the dishes. I made up the beds and cleaned the yards.

"Master Brown owned two farms. He had plenty hands on his farms. I did never go down to the farms much but I knowed the hands. On Saturday little later than other days they brought the stock to the house and fed. Then they went to the smokehouse for their rations. He had a great big garden, strawberries, and grape arbors.

"One thing I had to do was worm the plants. I put the worms in a bottle and leave it in the row where the sun would dry the worms up. When a light frost come I would water the plants that would wilt before the sun riz and ag'in at night. Then the plants never felt the frost. Certainly it didn't kill 'em. It didn't hurt 'em.

"Julane was the regular milk woman. She milked and strained the milk. I churned and 'tended to the chickens. Miss Agnes sot the hens her own self. She marked the eggs with a piece of charcoal to see if other hens laid by the setting hen. If they did she'd take the new egg out of the nest.

"We had flower gardens. We had mint, rosemary, tansy, sage, mullen, catnip, horseradish, artichokes, hoarhound--all good home remedies.

"I never knowed when we moved to that farm. I was so small. I heard Miss Agnes Brown say I was a baby when they moved to Boldan depot, not fur from Clinton, Mississippi.

"When I left Miss Agnes I went to some folks my own color on another farm 'joining to their farm. Of course I took my baby. I took Anna and I been living with Anna ever since. What I'd do now without her. (Anna is an Indian and very proud of being half Indian.) My husband done dead.

"I get eight dollars welfare help. And I do get some commodities. Anna does all right but she got hit on the shoulder and about lost use of her arm. One of the railroad hands up here got mad and hit her. I had doctors. They done it a little good. It's been hurt three years or more now.

"I wisht I knowd where to find a bed of mullen. Boil it down to a syrup and add some molasses, boil that down. It makes a good syrup for coughs and colds.

"I never went to white folks' church none hardly. Miss Agnes sent me along with her cook to my own color's church.

"My husband sure was good to me. We never had but one fight. Neither one whooped.

"This young generation is going backward. They tired of training. They don't want no advice. They don't want to work out no more. They don't know what they want. I think folks is trifling than they was when I come on. The times is all right and some of the people. I'm talking about mine and yo' color both."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Dinah Perry 1800 Ohio Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78

"Yes ma'am, I lived in slavery times. They brought me from Alabama, a baby, right here to this place where I am at, Mr. Sterling Cockril.

"I don't know zackly when I was born but I member bout the slave times. Yes ma'am, I do. After I growed up some, I member the overseer--I do. I can remember Mr. Burns. I member when he took the hands to Texas. Left the chillun and the old folks here.

"Oh Lord, this was a big plantation. Had bout four or five hundred head of niggers.

"My mother done the milkin' and the weavin'. After free times, I wove me a dross. My mother fixed it for me and I wove it. They'd knit stockin's too. But now they wear silk. Don't keep my legs warm.

"I member when they fit here in Pine Bluff. I member when 'Marmajuke' sent word he was gain' to take breakfast with Clayton that mornin' and they just fit. I can remember that was 'Marmajuke.' It certainly was 'Marmajuke.' The Rebels tried to carry me away but the wagon was so full I didn't get in and I was glad they didn't. My mother was runnin' from the Rebels and she hid under the cotehouse. After the battle was over she come back hero to the plantation.

"I had three brothers and three sisters went to Texas and I know I didn't know em when they come back.

"I member when they fit here a bum shell fell right in the yard. It was big around as this stovepipe and was all full of chains and things.

"After free time my folks stayed right here and worked on the shares. I was the baby chile and never done no work till I married when I was fifteen.

"After the War I went to school to white teachers from the North. I never went to nothin' but them. I went till I was in the fifth grade.

"My daddy learned me to spell 'lady' and 'baker' and 'shady' fore I went to school. I learned all my ABC's too. I got out of the first reader the second day. I could just read it right on through. I could spell and just stand at the head of the class till the teacher sent me to the foot all the time.

"My daddy was his old mistress' pet. He used to carry her to school all the time and I guess that's where he got his learnin'.

"After I was married I worked in the field. Rolled logs, cut brush, chopped and picked cotton.

"I member when they had that 'Bachelor' (Brooks-Baxter) War up here at Little Rock.

"After my chillun died, I never went to the field no more. I just stayed round mongst the white folks nussin'. All the chillun I nussed is married and grown now.

"All this younger generation--white and colored--I don't know what's gwine come of em. The poet says:

'Each gwine a different way
And all the downward road.'"

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden Person interviewed: Dinah Perry 1002 Indiana, Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 78 [TR: Appears to be same as last informant despite different address.]

"I'se bawn in Alabama and brought here to Arkansas a baby. I couldn't tell what year I was bawn 'cause I was a baby. A chile can't tell what year he was bawn 'less they tells him and they sure didn't tell me.

"When I'd wake up in the mawnin' my mother would be gone to the field.

"Some things I can remember good but you know old folks didn't 'low chillun to stand around when they was talkin' in dem days. They had to go play. They had to be mighty particular or they'd get a whippin'.

"Chillun was better in them days 'cause the old folks was strict on 'em. Chillun is raisin' theirselves today.

"I 'member one song they used to sing

'We'll land over shore
We'll land over shore;
And we'll live forever more.'

"They called it a hymn. They'd sing it in church, then they'd all get to shoutin'.