Seems to me like I remember a big,
big house. We was sort of out in the country---out from Memphis. I know
there was my father and my mother and my uncles and my aunts. I know
there was that many. How many more of us old man Doc Walker had--I just
don't know. They must have took good care of us tho. My mother was a
house nigrah.

"When the war was ready to quit they gave us our pick. We could stay on
and work for wages or we could go. The folks decided that the'd go on in
to Memphis. My Mother and Father didn't live together none after we went
to town. First I lived with Mother and then when she died my Father took
me. My mother died when I was 9. She worked at cooking and washing. When
I was big enough I went to school. I kept on going to school after my
Father took me. He died when I was about 15. By that time I was old
enough to look out after myself.

"What did I do? I stayed in folkses houses. I cooked and I washed. Then
when I was about 16, I married. After that I had a man to take care of
me. He was a carpenter.

"We been here in Hot Springs a long time--you maybe heared of
Sanderson--he took up platering and he was good too. How long I been in
Hot Springs--law I don't know--'cept I was a full grown women when we
come.

"I's had four children--all of 'em is dead. I lives with my grandson.
The little fellow, he'll be old enough to go to school in a year or two.
A dime for him ma'am--an' 2 cents besides? Now son you keep the dime and
you can spend the pennies. I always tries to teach him to save. Then
when he gets big he'll know what to do."

Dining room and living room joined one another by means of a high and
wide arch. The stove was sensibly set up in this passage. Both rooms
were comfortably furnished with products which had in all probability
been bought new. The child stood close by thruout the entire
conversation. There was no whit of timidity about him, nor was he the
least impertinent. He was frankly interested and wanted to know what was
being said. He received the dime and the pennies with a pleasant grin
and a (grandmother prompted) "Thank you". But the gift didn't startle
him. Dimes must have been a fairly usual part of his life. But a few
minutes before the interviewer left she dropped her pencil. It was new
and long and yellow. The child's eyes clung to it as he returned it.
"Would you like to have it." the young woman asked, "would you like a
pencil of your very own, to draw with?" Would he!