o thought a heap of
me the way I cooked and worked for her. That was my freedom. I was sold
on a platform to Mr. Mathis.

"After freedom I done field work. I never seen a Ku Klux in my life. I
cooked out some and I married. I still cooked out. I was married once
and married in a church. I have seven children living and seven dead.

"I live with my daughter and her family and I get $6 and commodities.
I'm mighty thankful for that. It helps me a whole lots.

"I recken young folks do the best they know to do. Seems like folks are
kinder hearted than they used to be. Times have changed a heap every
way. Times is harder for poor folks than the others. It is a true saying
that poor folks have hard ways and rich folks have mean ways. They are
more selfish. I always had to work hard. Both times I was sold for
$100."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Persons interviewed: William and Charlotte Guess
West Memphis, Arkansas
Ages: 68 and 66

William Guess

"I was born in Monroe County, Arkansas. Father come from Dallas, Texas
when a young man before he married. Him and two other men was shipped in
a box to Indian Bay. I've heard him and Ike Jimmerson laugh how they got
bumped and bruised, hungry and thirsty in the box. I forgot the name of
the other man in the box. They was sent on a boat and changed boats
where they got tumbled up so bad. It was in slavery or war times one.
White folks nailed them up and opened them up too I think. Father was
born in Dallas, Texas. Mother was a small woman and come from Tennessee.
Billy Boyce in Monroe County owned her. That is the most I ever heard my
folks tell about the Civil War."

Charlotte Guess

"Mother was born in Dallas, Texas. She was born into slavery. She was a
field woman. She was sold there and brought to Mississippi at about the
close of the Civil War. She was sold from her husband and two children.
She never seen them. She farmed cotton and corn in Texas. Her husband
whooped her, so she was glad to be sold. She married after the surrender
to another man in Mississippi. No, he didn't beat her. They had
disputes. She was the mother of ten children. She lived to be 82 years
old. She went from Arkansas back to Mississippi to die."

INTERVIEWER'S NOTE

It would be interesting if I could find out more about why the Negroes
were sent in the box. He seemed not to know all about it. This Negro man
when young was a light mulatto. He is l