fer you. How they do? All sorts of ways. Some stayed at their cabins
glad to have one to live in an' farmed on. Some runnin' 'round beggin',
some hunting work for money an' nobody had no money 'ceptin' the Yankees
and they had no homes or land and mighty little work fer you to do. No
work to live on. Some goin' every day to the city. That winter I heard
'bout them starving and freezing by the wagon loads.

"I never heard nuthing 'bout votin' till freedom. I don't think I ever
voted till I come to Mississippi. I votes Republican. That's the party
of my color and I stick to them long as they do right. I don't dabble in
white folk's buzness an' that white folks votin' is their buzness. If I
vote I go do it and go on home.

"I been plowin' all my life and in the hot days I cuts and saws wood.
Then when I gets outer cotton pickin' I put each boy on a load of wood
an' we sell wood. Then we clear land till next spring. I don't find no
time to be loafing. I never missed a year farming till I got the Brights
disease an' it hurt me to do hard work. The last years we got $3 a cord.
Farmin' is the best life there is when you are able.

"I come to Holly Springs in 1850, stopped to visit. I had six children
and $90 in money. We come on the train. My parents done come on from
South Carolina to Arkansas. Man say this ain't no richer land than you
come from. I tried it seven years. I drove from there, ferried the
rivers. It took a long time. We made the best crop I ever seed in 1888.
I had eight children, my wife. I cut and hauled wood all winter. I soon
had three teams haulin' wood to Clarendon. Some old men, [white men]
mean things! Learned one of my boys to play craps. They done it to git
his money.

"When I owned most I had six head mules and five head horses. I rented
140 acres of land. I bought this house and some other land about. The
anthrax killed nearly all my horses and mules. I got one big fine mule
yet. Its mate died. I lost my house. My son give me one room and he
paying the debt off now. It's hard for colored folks to keep anything.
Somebody gets it frum 'em if they don't mind.

"The present times is hard. Timber is scarce. Game is about all gone.
Prices higher. Old folks cannot work. Times is hard for younger folks
too. They go to town too much and go to shows. They going to a tent show
now. Circus coming they say. They spending too much money for
foolishness. It's a fast time. Folks too restless. Some of the color