. Made a fine crop. The man let another man have us to
work. He was a colored man. His wife she was mean to us. She never come
to see or do one thing when we all had fever. The babies nearly starved.
Took all for doctor bills and medicine. Had $12 when all bills settled
out of the whole crop. In all I had fifteen children. But two girls and
one boy all that livin now. I farmed and washed and ironed all my life.
My husband was born a slave. (He recently died.)

"The present generation ain't got no religion. They dances and cuts up a
heap. They don't care nothing bout settlin down. When they marry now,
that man say he got the law on her. She belongs to him. He thinks he can
make her do like he wants her all the time and they don't get along. Now
that's what I hear round. I sho got married and we got along good till
he died. We treated one another best we knowed how. The times is what
the folks making it. Time ain't no different, is like the folks make.
This depression is whut the folks is making. Some so scared they won't
get it all. They leave mighty little for the rest to get. They ain't
nothin matter with nothin but the greedy people want it all to split
through wid. I don't know what going to come of it all. Nothin I tell
you bout it ain't no good. Young folks done smarter than I is. They
don't listen to nobody."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: John Wesley, Helena, Arkansas
Age: ?

"I was full grown when the Civil War come on. I was a slave till
'mancipation. I was born close to Lexington, Kentucky. My master in
Kentucky was Master Griter. He was 'fraid er freedom. Father belong to
Averys in Tennessee. He was a farm hand. They wouldn't sell him. I was
sold to Master Boone close to Moscow. I was sold on a scaffold high as
that door (twelve feet). I seen a lot of children sold on that scaffold.
I fell in the hands of George Coggrith. We come to Helena in wagons. We
crossed the river out from Memphis to Hopefield. I lived at Wittsburg,
Arkansas during the war. They smuggled us about from the Yankees and
took us to Texas. Before the war come on we had to fight the Indians
back. They tried to sell us in Texas. George Coggrith's wife died.
Mother was the cook for all the hands and the white folks too. She
raised two boys and three girls for him. She went on raising his
children during the war and after the war. During the war we hid out and
raised cotton and corn. We hid in the woods. The Y