it was light brushing. I lived up in the
Piney Woods. It was big rich bottom plantations from Weldon Bridge to
Halifax down on the river. They was rough on 'em, killed some. No, I
never seen Jim Johnson to know him. He lived at Edenton, North Carolina.
I recollect mighty well the day he died we had a big storm, blowed down
big trees. That jail was standing when I come to Arkansas forty-seven
years ago. It was a 'Bill brew' (stocks) they put men in when they put
them in jail. Turned male hog in there for a blind.

"Part of Jim Johnson's overseers was black and part white. Hatterway was
white and Nat was black. They was the head overseers and both bad men. I
could hear them crying way to our place early in the morning and at
night.

"Lansing Kahart owned grandma when I was a little boy.

"They took hands in droves one hundred fifty miles to Richmond to sell
them. Richmond and New Orleans was the two big selling blocks. My uncle
was sold at Richmond and when I come to Arkansas he was living at
Helena. I never did get to see him but I seen his two boys. They live
down there now. I don't know how my uncle got to Helena but he was
turned loose down in this country at 'mancipation. They told me that.

"When a man wanted a woman he went and axed the master for her and took
her on. That is about all there was to it. No use to want one of the
women on Jim Johnson's, Debrose, Tillery farms. They kept them on their
own and didn't want visitors. They was big farms. Kershy had a big farm.

"The Yankees never went to my master's house a time. The black folks
knowd the Yankees was after freedom. They had a song no niggers ever
made up, 'I wanter be free.'

"My master was too old to go to war but Bill went. I think it was better
times in slavery than now but I'm not in favor of bringing it back on
account of the cruelty and dividing up families. My master was good to
us. He was proud of us. We fared fine. He had a five or six horse farm.
His land wasn't strong but we worked and had plenty. Mother cooked for
white and colored. We had what they et 'cepting when company come. When
they left we got scraps. Then when Christmas come we had cakes and pies
stacked up setting about for us to cut. They cut down through a whole
stack of pies. Cut them in halves and pass them among us. We got hunks
of cake a piece. We had plain eating er plenty all the time. You see I'm
a big man. I wasn't starved out till I was about grown, after the War
was