inal "wretch" in the song may have been a general error in some
local congregations.

Interviewer: Pernella M. Anderson
Person interviewed: Henrietta Williams
B. Avenue, El Dorado, Arkansas
Age: About 82

"I am about 82 years old. I was born in Georgia down in the cotton
patch. I did not know much about slavery, for I was raised in the white
folks' house, and my old mistress called me her little nigger, and she
didn't allow me to be whipped and drove around. I remember my old master
whipped me one time and old mistress fussed with him so much he never
did whip me any more.

"I never had to get out and do any real hard work until I was nearly
grown. My mother did not have but one child. My father was sold from my
mother when I was about two years old and he was carried to Texas and I
did not see him any more until I was 35 years old. So my mother married
again when she was set free. I didn't stay with my mother very much. She
stayed off in a little log house with a dirt floor, and she cooked on
the fireplace with a skillet and lid, and the house had one window with
a shutter. She had to cut logs and roll them like a man and split rails
and plow. I would sometimes ask old mistress to let me go out where my
mother was working to see her plow and when I got to be a big girl about
nine years she began learning me how to plow.

"I often told the niggers the white folks raised me. The niggers tell
me, 'Yes, the white folks raise you but the niggers is going to kill
you.'

"After freedom my mistress and master moved to Louisiana. They farmed.
They owned a big plantation. I did the housework.

"The biggest snow I remember was the big centennial snow. Oh, that's
been years ago. The snow was so deep you couldn't get out of the house.
The boys had to take the shovel and the hoe and keep the snow raked away
from around the door.

"There was a big old oak tree that stood in the corner of the yard.
People say that tree was a hundred years old. We could not get no wood,
so master had the boys to cut the big old oak tree for wood.

"Rabbits had a scant time. The boys would go out and track six or eight
rabbits at a time. We had rabbits of all descriptions. We had rabbits
for breakfast, rabbits for dinner, rabbits for supper time. We had fried
rabbits, baked rabbits, stewed rabbits, boiled rabbits. Had rabbits,
rabbits, rabbits the whole six or eight weeks the snow stayed on the
ground.

"I rememb