ILLUSTRATIONS (continued 3)

“I come to Holly Springs in 1850, stopped to visit. I had six children and $90 in money. We come on the train. My parents done come on from South Carolina to Arkansas. Man say this ain’t no richer land than you come from. I tried it seven years. I drove from there, ferried the rivers. It took a long time. We made the best crop I ever seed in 1888. I had eight children, my wife. I cut and hauled wood all winter. I soon had three teams haulin’ wood to Clarendon. Some old men, [white men] mean things! Learned one of my boys to play craps. They done it to git his money.

“When I owned most I had six head mules and five head horses. I rented 140 acres of land. I bought this house and some other land about. The anthrax killed nearly all my horses and mules. I got one big fine mule yet. Its mate died. I lost my house. My son give me one room and he paying the debt off now. It’s hard for colored folks to keep anything. Somebody gets it frum ’em if they don’t mind.

“The present times is hard. Timber is scarce. Game is about all gone. Prices higher. Old folks cannot work. Times is hard for younger folks too. They go to town too much and go to shows. They going to a tent show now. Circus coming they say. They spending too much money for foolishness. It’s a fast time. Folks too restless. Some of the colored folks work hard as folks ever did. They spends too much. Some folks is lazy. Always been that way.

“I signed up to the Governmint but they ain’t give me nuthin’ ’ceptin’ powdered milk and rice what wasn’t fit to eat. It cracked up and had black somethin’ in it. A lady said she would give me some shirts that was her husbands. I went to get them but she wasn’t home. These heavy shirts give me heat. They won’t give me the pension an’ I don’t know why. It would help me buy my salts and pills and the other medicines like Swamp Root. They won’t give it to me.”

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Linley Hadley Madison, Arkansas Age: 77

“I was born the very day the Civil War started, April 12, 1861. I was born in Monroe County close to Aberdeen, Mississippi. My papa was named Dave Collins. He was born far back as 1832. He was a carriage driver.

“Mama was born same year as papa. She was a field hand and a cook. She could plough good as any man. She was a guinea woman. She weighed ninety-five pounds. She had fourteen children. She did that. Had six or seven after freedom. She had one slave husband. Her owners was old Master Wylie Collins and Mistress Jane. We come ’way from their place in 1866.

“I can recollect old Master Collins calling up all the niggers to his house. He told them they was free. There was a crowd of them, all mixes. Why all this took place now I don’t know. Most of the niggers took what all they have on their heads and walked off. He told mama to move up in the loom house, if she go off he would kill her. We moved to the loom house till in 1866.

“One night some of the niggers what had been Collins’ slaves come and stole all mama’s children, toted us off on their backs at night. Where we come to cross the river, Uncle George Tunnel was the ferryman. He had raised mama at his cabin at slavery. He took us to his white folks. We lived with them a year and then mama moved on Bill Cropton’s place and we lived there forty years. All the Croptons dead now.

“We come to Arkansas in 1891 close to Cotton Plant. 1898, I come to Madison. Been here ever since.

“Grandma belong to Master Rogers where we knowed George Tunnel. Mama, named Harriett, and Aunt Miller was sold. A man in Texas bought Aunt Miller. We never could hear a word from her. After freedom we tried and tried. Master Collins was mean. You couldn’t lay your hand on mama’s back without laying it on marks where she had been beat. All his niggers was glad to leave him. They stripped mama’s clothes down to her waist and whooped her, beat the blood out with cowhides. Master Collins ’lowed his niggers to steal, then his girls come take some of it to their house to eat. Master Collins didn’t have no boys.

“Papa was a little chunky man. He’d steal flour and hogs. He could tote a hog on his back. My papa went on off when freedom come. They was so happy they had no sense. Mama never seen him no more. I didn’t neither. Mama didn’t care so much about him. He was her mate give to her. I didn’t worry ’bout him nor nobody then.

“Master Collins did give us plenty to wear and eat too. When I left there we all worked. Mama married ag’in. We kept on farming. I farmed all my life.

“I got a boy what works. We own our house and all this place (one-half acre). I don’t get no help from nowhere. Seem like them what works and tries ought to be the ones to get help and not them what don’t never pay no taxes. Fast generation it is now. But they don’t bother me. I got a good boy. Times is hard. Everything you have to buy is high.”

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Anna Hall (mulatto) Brinkley, Arkansas Age: 68

“I don’t know nuthin’ cept what I heard folks talk ’bout when I was a child. I was born good while after that war. My folks lived in Scott County near Jackson, Mississippi when I was little and in slavery times too. My mother’s mistress was Miss Dolly Cruder. She was a widow and run her own farm. I don’t remember her. She give her own children a cotton patch apiece and give the women hands a patch about and they had to work it at night. If the moon didn’t give light somebody had to hold a literd (lantern) not fur from ’em so they could see to hoe and work it out. I think she had more land then hands, what they made was to be about a bale around for extra money. It took all the day time working in the big field for Miss Dolly. I heard ’em say how tired they would be and then go work out their own patches ’fore they go to bed. I don’t remember how they said the white girls got their cotton patches worked. And that is about all I remembers good ’nough to tell you.

“They didn’t expect nothing but freedom out the war. The first my mother heard she was working doing something and somebody say, ‘What you working fur don’t you know you done free?’ That the first she knowed she was free. They just passed the word round; that’s how they heard it and the soldiers started coming in to their families. Some of them come back by themselves and some come riding several of them together.

“I know they didn’t give my mother nothing after the war. She washed and ironed ’bout all her life.

“The young generation is doing better than we old folks is. If there is any work to get they gets it in preference to us. Education is helping some of ’em here in Brinkley. Some of the young ones gets good money. They teaches and cooks. Times is hard for some.

“I live wid my son. Yes he own his house. I gets $8 from the relief. We has ’bout ’nough to live on and dat is all.”

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Ellie Hamilton (male) Clarendon, Arkansas Age:

“I was born about near Holly Springs, Mississippi. My parents’ masters’ name William and Mary Ellen Jefferies. I don’t know much ’bout them. My parents’ name Neely and Amos Hamilton. I judge that was pa’s master’s name. They had eight children. Three of us living yet.

“I been farmin’ and workin’ ’round Clarendon ever since I was a chap. I work ’round hotels and stores and farm too.

“I votes when we have a leader for our party. It don’t do no good. I never seed no good come outen the colored race votin’ yet.

“Some ways times is much better, much better! Some ways they is worser. The people is educated better’n I had a chance at.

“Work wages is a heap better. I has worked for $7 a month. Now some can get $18 to $20 a week. But the young generation throwin’ it away. They ain’t going to save a bit of it. The present condition is worse morally. They used to could depend on a man. You can’t hardly depend on the younger generation. They is so tricky. Folks going too much. I recollect when I was a child I went to town one or two times a year. I didn’t want all I seen there then neither. Seems lack folks spends so much money foolishly.

“I own a home, no cow, no hog, no land. Get $10 a month from the PWA.

“I come to Arkansas to farm. It is a fine farmin’ country, Miss. My father died and left my mother wid seven children to raise. She come on out here to make a livin’.

“I remember when Tilden and Hendrick lost and Hayes and Wheeler was elected. They sung songs ’bout ’em and said ‘Carve that possum nigger to the heart.’ It done been so long since we sung them rally songs I forgot every line of all of them. People used to sing more religious songs seems like than they do now. They done gone wild over dancin’ ’stead of singin’.

“I farmed for J. P. Cherry at Holly Springs from time I was eight year old till I was twenty-one year old. That’s a long time to stay by one man ain’t it?”

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Josephine Hamilton Hazen, Arkansas Age: 77

“I was born near Houston, Mississippi, in 1860. We lived about three miles north when I can first recollect. My mistress was named Frankie Hill and my master was Littleton Hill. I had some sisters and brothers dead but I had four brothers and one sister that got up grown. The first house I remembers living in was a plank house. Then we lived in a log house wid a stick-and-dirt chimney. I was wid my old master when he died of heart trouble. She lack to died too. We setting by de fire one night and he held the lamp on one knee and reading out loud. It was a little brass lamp with a handle to hook your finger in. He was a Baptist. He had two fine horses, a big gray one and a bay horse. Joe drove him to preaching. Miss Frankie didn’t go. He said his haid hurt when dey went to eat dinner and he slept all the evening. He et supper and was reading. I was looking at him. He laid his haid back and started snoring. He had long white hair. I say ‘Miss Frankie, he is dieing.’ Cause he turned so pale. He was setting in a high back straight chair. We got him on the bed. He could walk when we held him up. His brother was a curious old man. He et morphine a whole heap. He lived by himself. I run fast as my legs would take me. Soon as I told him he blowed a long horn. They said it was a trumpet. You never seen such a crowd as come toreckly. The hands come and the neighbors too. It being dot time er night they knowed something was wrong. He slept awhile but he died that night. I stayed up there wid Miss Frankie nearly all de time. It was a mile from our cabin across the field. Joe stayed there some. He fed and curried the horses. Nom I don’t remember no slave uprisings. They had overseers on every farm and a paddyroll. I learned to sew looking at the white folks and my ma showed me about cutting. There wasn’t much fit about them. They were all tollerably loose. We played hiding behind the trees a heap and played in the moonlight. We played tag. We picked up scaley barks, chestnuts, and walnuts. Miss Frankie parched big pans of goobers when it was cold or raining. Some of the white folks was mean. Once young mistress was sick. She had malaria fever. I was sitting down in the other room. Young master was lying on de bed in the same room. A woman what was waiting on her brought the baby in to put a cloth on him. He was bout two months old, little red-headed baby. He was kicking and I got tickled at him. Young master slapped me. The blood from my nose spouted out and I was jess def for a long time. He beat me around till Miss Polly come in there and said ‘You quit beating that little colored girl. You oughter be ashamed. Your wife in there nearly dead.’ ‘Yes maam, she did die.’ I never will forgit Miss Polly. I saved one of the young mistress little girl bout seven or eight years old. Miss Frankie raised a little deer up grown. It would run at anybody. Didn’t belong at the house. It got so it would run me. It started at the little girl and I pulled her in on the porch backwards and in a long hall. Her mama show was proud. Said the deer would paw her to death.

“I remembers everybody shouting and so glad they was free. It was a joyful time. If they paid my folks for work I didn’t know it. We stayed on with Miss Frankie till I was grown and her son Billy Hill took her to Houston, Texas to live. Miss Sallie and Miss Fannie had been married a long time. We always had a house to live in and something to eat.

“I show never did vote. I would not know nothing about it. I think the folks is getting wiser and weaker. Some of us don’t have much as we need and them that do have wastes it. I always lived on the farm till eight years ago when my husband died. I wasn’t able to farm by myself. I didn’t have no children. I come to Hazen to live wid dese here girls I raised. (Two girls.) They show is good to me. No maam I ain’t never got no old age pension. They won’t give it to me. We come to Arkansas in 1918. We lived down around Holly Grove. We had kin folks wrote about out here and we wanted to change. Long as I was able I had a good living but since I been so feeble I have to make out wid what the children bring me. I don’t know if de times is getting any better, don’t seem lack the people training their children a tall. They say they kaint do nothing wid em. I allus could do something wid dem I raised. I used to look at them and they minded me. The trouble is they ain’t learning to work and won’t do nothing less they going to get big pay. Then they run spend it fast as they can go for fool-bait.”