10. Other points gained in interview--They tell some of their childhood
days.
#792
FORM C
_Text of Interview (Unedited)_
_Talitha_: "Howdy, chillun, come in. Naw suh, Jack ain't heah right now.
He down tuh the thicket back uv de house gittin' some wood. Naw suh, he
won't be gone long. He soon be back. You all come in and set on the
gallery. Here's a cheer, missy. He be back in no time tall.
"You wants to know how old I am? I was born April 14, 1864 before the
niggers was freed in '65.
"My mother was a field woman (worked in the field) and had seven chillun
when set free. Her mistress raised her from three weeks old. Her mother
burned to death in a house on the plantation. Our home was 'bout four
miles east of Arcadia, Louisiana, or rather Miss Sarah Given's house
was, and we stayed on wid her until I was a big girl, plowin' and
hoeing.
"No ma'am, I never did go to no parties. I was never 'lowed to go. I
been a member of the church since I was ten and now I'm seventy-three.
"I first married a man by the name of Williams and had three chillun by
him, two boys and one girl. Then I was a widow fifteen years before I
married Jack. We ain't never had no chillun, but Jack had three chillun
and I helped to raise them and I've helped raise a bunch of his
gran'chillun.
"I believes I hear Jack back there now."
_Jack_: "Howdy, howdy! So you is back for more tales 'bout long ago. I'se
seventy-three and I been in this world a long time I tell you."
_Talitha_: "Now, Jack, you knows you is heap older 'n me and I'm
seventy-three and I was born jes 'bout a year befo the War closed and
you say you was a big chap then."
_Jack_: "Well, I guess I was around six years old when the War started. I
was a good big chap. I 'member one evening 'bout three o'clock I was
settin' out in the yard playin' with a mate of mine--Johnnie Cook. I
guess you would call him my mate; he was my mistress's boy and 'bout my
age and we played together all the time even if I was black. I was the
only black boy on the place, all the other cullud chillun was gals. Us
chaps was out in the yard making frog nesties with our bare feet in the
sand. They was fightin' in Vicksburg then. They was doing a whole lot of
shooting. You could hear it one right after the other and it got so
smoky. I thought it was thunder and said something 'bout hit. Mistress
was setting on the gallery sewing and when I said that she said, 'Aw
Lawd, that ain't no thunder,' but she didn' tell us what hit wuz."
_Talitha_: "Course I wasn't old enough to know anything 'bout hit but I
heard my mother say it got so smoky the chickens didn't get off the
roost while they was bustin' all them big cannons."
_Jack_: "All us chillun was just as fat and healthy as hogs. Warn't never
sick. They'd feed 'bout this time every evening (4 p.m.) and by sundown
I was in bed. My mother worked in the field and I've heard her say that
sometime she didn't see her chillun from Sunday to Sunday. Old lady
Hannah Banks done the cooking for everybody and she cooked on a big
fireplace. They didn't have no stove. _Why, I got here before the stoves
did._ Ma and pa and all the grown ones would get up at four o'clock and
eat breakfast and be in the field workin' by sunup. They had a box with
shelves drove up on the side of the wall to the cabin where we slept and
old lady Hannah Banks would put our breakfast in that and when we woke
up we would get it and eat. One morning I woke up before the other
chillun did and 'cided I'd git my breakfast first 'fore they did. I clem
up, rech up and got holt of that box and I was so heavy I pulled it down
and broke all the old blue edge plates. That woke the other chillun up
all right, and I can jes see them old blue edge plates now. For dinner
they would give us boiled greens or beans wid bread and for supper they
would save the slop (liquor), cram it full of bread, pour it in a tray
and give it to all the chilluns and me, sister Julia, Nancy, Lizzie,
Marthy, and all the little nigger chillun."
_Talitha_: "Huh! Old man Givens had so many little nigger chillun couldn'
feed 'em in no tray. Had to have troughs. They'd take a log and hollow
it out and make three tubs in a row and put peg legs on it and a hole in
the bottom of each one with a pin in it. They would use these tubs to
wash the clothes in and pull the stem up to let all the water run out,
clean 'em out real good, fill with bread and pot-licker or bread and
milk, and feed the nigger chillun."
_Jack_: "You say our nephew wants to come out and bring a bunch of young
folks and wants me to take them 'possum hunting some moonlight night?
Sho, sho, I'll go."
_Talitha_: "I don't know how he'd go lessen we totes him. Why, he got the
rheumatism so bad he can't hardly git 'round in the daytime much less at
night. Why, the other day he was out in the field follerin' the boy that
was plowin' up the potatoes and we was goin' on pickin' them up. First
thing I know I hear somethin' behind me go 'plop' and I looked roun and
there lay Jack jes stretched out. Fell down over his own feet. So what
would he do out nights? And you sees that knot on his ankle. Hit was
broke when he was a boy an' hit still gives him trouble when his
rheumatism starts up."
_Jack_: "You say how did I do it? I was jumpin'. A bunch of us boys was
jumpin' 'cross a ditch jes to see how far we could jump. I was a young
chap 'bout seventeen or eighteen then. I was doin' purty well with my
jumpin' when I made a misjump an' jumped crooked and hit my ankle on a
big old iron rock. My but hit hurt bad. I didn' do no more jumpin' that
day. The next day I was down in the woods getting a load of lider. Had
put on a few pieces on the wagon when I started to turn aroun and down I
went. I jes lay there and hollered till someone come an' got me. That
was in the winter just before Christmas and I didn't get out no more
till in the spring. The woods looked right purty to me when I got out.
The leaves was great big. And that ain't all, I ain't jumped no more
since. 'Sides that I ain't never been sick to 'mount to anything. Had
the whooping cough at the same time that Joe and Tom Snyder had hit.
Still got my natchel teeth, lost four up here and got one that bothers
me some, 'sides that I have 'em all. Yas suh, that the schoolhouse
'cross the road there. We has preachin' there sometimes too. Does Ab
preach there? He, he, he! sometime he do. Did I ever tell you 'bout the
time Ab was preaching out here at ____ and got to stampin' roun wid
that peg-leg of his'n an' hit went through the rotten floor and we had
to pull him out? He, he, he!"
_Talitha_: "Now, Jack Island, you knows that is jes 'nother one uv yo
tales. I is been to hear Ab preach lots of times and he does storm roun
mighty bad and I ain't got no faith in his religion tall but I warn't
there when he fell through the floo'."
Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson
Person interviewed: Mary Island
626 Nelson Street, El Dorado, Arkansas
Age: 80
"I was born in Union Parish, Louisiana in the year of 1857, so the white
folks told me, and I am eighty years old. My mama died when I was two
years old and my aunty raised me. She started me out washing dishes when
I was four years old and when I was six she was learning me how to cook.
While the other hands was working in the field I carried water. We had
to cook out in the yard on an old skillet and lid, so you see I had to
tote brush and bark and roll up little logs such as I could to keep the
fire from one time of cooking to the other. I was not but six years old
either. When I got to be seven years old I was cutting sprouts almost
like a man and when I was eight I could pick one hundred pounds of
cotton. When it rained and we could not go to the field my aunty had me
spinning thread to make socks and cloth, then I had to card the bats and
make the rolls to spin.
"My auntie was a slave and she lived in the edge of the field. Of course
I was born a slave but didn't know much about it because my aunty did
the bossing of me but I had a pretty hard time. Our wash tubs, water
buckets, bread trays and such were made out of tupelo gum logs dug out
with some kind of an axe and when aunty would wash I had to use the
battling stick. I would carry the wet clothes to a stump and beat them
with that battling stick and we hung the clothes out on bushes and on
the fence. We used water from a spring.
"In my young days all we wore was homespun and lowel.[HW: ?] We lived
in a log house with a dirt floor and the cracks was chinked with mud and
our bed was some poles nailed against the wall with two legs out on the
dirt floor, and we pulled grass and put in a lowel[HW: ?] bed tick. My
aunty would get old dresses, old coats, and old pants and make quilts.
"I never went to school a day in my life. No, the back of my head has
never rubbed against the walls of a schoolhouse and I never did go to
Sunday School and I never did like it. And I didn't go to church until I
was grown and the church that I did attend was called the Iron Jacket
Church. Now they call it the Hard Shell Church. I believe in foot
washing. I don't go to church now because there is no Hard Shell church
close around here."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Henrietta Isom, Biscoe, Arkansas
Age: 81
"I was born in Mississippi. It wasn't far from Memphis, Tennessee. I
heard em talking bout it then. When I first knowed anything we lived way
down in Mississippi. It was on a big farm not close to no place much. My
ma's and pa's master was named Thornton. Seems lack it was Jack and her
name was Miss Lucretia. They show did have a big family, little ones on
up. I have three sisters and a brother all dead--ma was a farm hand. She
left us wid a real old woman--all the little children stayed right wid
her. We minded her lack our ma's. She switch our legs if we didn't. She
carded and sewed about all the time.
"I don't know much about master and mistress; their house was way over
the field. They lived on a hill and had the finest well of water. It was
so cold. They had two buckets on a chain to pull it up by. The cabins
down closer to the creek. There was two springs one used mostly for
washing and the other for house use.
"I don't know how many cabins they was scattered. He had a lot of hands
about all I remembers--on Saturdays we get to go up to the house to
fetch back something; some provisions. They tell us if we be good we
could go. They done their own cooking. When they work their dinners was
sent to the shade trees from white folks house and the childrens was
sent too. We would all stand around Miss Rachel (white) when she bring
it then we go sit on the steps and eat. We show did have plenty to eat.
We wear the dresses new in cold weather then they wear thin for summer.
They be lighter in color too when they fade.
"I remember when the white folks left an went to war. They worked on.
They had a white man and a colored man boss. When freedom was declared
nearly all of them walked off so glad they was free. I don't know where
they all went. My folks went to another big place. We had a hard time.
We all farmed. I don't know what they expected from freedom. Nobody
didn't ask for nuthin. I remembers when some new hands was bought and
put on the place. I think they sold em off in town.
"After de war at the church they talked bout if they didn't get freedom
they would clang together for der rights but they never did do nuthin.
Times was so hard they had to work harder than before.
"The Yankees nor none of the soldiers ever come to our cabins--I seen
them along the roads. They show did clean up Miss Leucretia's calves and
hogs. Took em all off at one time. Rations show did get mighty scarce.
"They sing, I recken they did sing, go off to work singin and the men
whistlin. Mostly sung religious songs. Master Thornton had a white man
preach sometimes. Down in front of the cabins in the shade. Sometimes
somebody get to go to white church with the family. They held the baby.
They didn't have no school.
"I seed the Ku Klux Klans in the road light nights--when they pass we
all peep out the cracks. They didn't bother nobody I knowed. We was
scared they would turn in an come to the house.
"I farmed all my life, hoed cotton and corn. No maam I aint never
voted--I jess lives wid my children here and my son in Memphis and my
other daughter at Helena. My daughter do farm work and my son railroads.
He works in the yards.
"I don't know what to say bout the generations comin on. They is smarter
in their books and sees more than older folks, but they ain't no better.
You kaint depend on what they says. I don't know what to say would make
the country better lessen the folks all be better.
"I never heard of no rebellions. I jess lived in Mississippi till I
comes here and Memphis and stay around wid the children and
grandchildren. They all do fairly well for the fast times I guess."