ndred years old. I know I'm a hundred. I know from where they
told me. I don't know when I was born.

"I been took down and whipped many a time because I didn't do my work
good. They took my pants down and whipped me just the same as if I'd
been a dog. Sometimes they would whip the people from Saturday night
till Monday morning.

"I run off with the Yankees. I was young then. I was in the Civil War. I
don't know how long I stayed in the army. I ain't never been back home
since. I wish I was. I wouldn't be in this condition if I was back home.

"Mississippi was my home. I come up here with the Yankees and I ain't
never been back since. Laconia, Mississippi was the place I used to be
down there. I been wanting to go home, but I couldn't git off. I want to
git you to write there for me. I belong to the Baptist church. Write to
the elders of the church. I belong to the Mission Baptist Church on the
other side of Rock Creek here.

"They just lived in log houses in slave time.

"I want to go back home. They made me leave Laconia.

"Pateroles!! Oh, my God!!! I know 'nough 'bout them. Child, I've heard
'em holler, 'Run, nigger, run! The pateroles will catch you.'

"The jayhawkers would catch people and whip them.

"I would be back home yet if they hadn't made me come away.

"They didn't have no church in slavery time. They jus' had to hide
around and worship God any way they could.

"I used to live in Laconia. I ain't been back there since the war. I
want to go back to my folks."

Interviewer's Comment

Frank Williams is like a man suffering from amnesia. He is the first old
man that I have interviewed whose memory is so far gone. He remembers
practically nothing. He can't tell you where he was born. He can't tell
you where he lived before he came to Little Rock. Only when his
associates mention some of the things he formerly told them can he
remember that little of his past that he does state in any remote
approach to detail.

There is a strong emotional set which relates to his slave time
experiences. The emotion surges up in his mind at any mention of slave
time matters. But only the emotion remains. The details are gone
forever. Names, times, places, happenings are gone forever. He does not
even recall the name of his father, the name of his mother, or the name
of any of his relatives or masters, or old-time friends. No single
definite thing rises above the horizon of his mind and defines itself
clearly to