"Right after freedom my mother married Bill Cardrelle. She moved from
the O'Neil place and went up to a place called the Dr. Jenkins' place.
She kept house for her husband in the new place. I didn't do much
there of anything. After they moved away from there when I was twelve
years old, they taught me to plow (1867). I went to school in the
contraband camp. Mrs. Clay and Mr. Clay, white folks from the North,
were my teachers. At that time, the colored people weren't able to
teach. I went a while to school with them. I got in the second
reader--McGuffy's--that's far as I got.
"I stayed with my mother and stepfather till I was about sixteen years
old. She sent me away to come up here to my father, Sam Lucas. My
oldest brother brought me here and I worked with him two years. Then I
went to a man named Cunningham and stayed with him about six months.
He paid me fifteen dollars a month and my board. He was going to raise
my wages when his wife decided she wanted women to do the work. The
women would slip things away and she wouldn't mention them to her
husband till weeks afterwards. Then long after the time, she would
accuse me. Those women would have the keys. When they went in to get
soap, they would take out a ham and carry it off a little ways and
hide. By the time his wife would tell him about it, you wouldn't be
able to find it nowhere.
"He owed me for a month's work. She told him not to pay it, but he
paid it and told me not to let her know he did it. I didn't either.
"When I left him, I came over the river here down here below Fourche
Dam. I stayed there forty or fifty years in that place. When I was
between thirty-two and thirty-three years old, I married, and I stayed
right on in that same place. I farmed all the time down there. I had
to go in a lawsuit about the last crop I made. Then I came here to
Little Rock in 1904 and followed ditching with the home water company.
Then I did gas ditching with the gas people. Then I worked on the
street car line for old man White. I come down then--got broke down,
and couldn't do much. The relief folks gave me a labor card; then they
took it away from me--said I was too old. I have done a heap of work
here in this town. I got old and had to stop.
"I get old age assistance from the Welfare. That is where I get my
groceries--through them. I wouldn't be able to live if it wasn't for
them.