ying it on marks where she had been beat. All his niggers
was glad to leave him. They stripped mama's clothes down to her waist
and whooped her, beat the blood out with cowhides. Master Collins 'lowed
his niggers to steal, then his girls come take some of it to their house
to eat. Master Collins didn't have no boys.

"Papa was a little chunky man. He'd steal flour and hogs. He could tote
a hog on his back. My papa went on off when freedom come. They was so
happy they had no sense. Mama never seen him no more. I didn't neither.
Mama didn't care so much about him. He was her mate give to her. I
didn't worry 'bout him nor nobody then.

"Master Collins did give us plenty to wear and eat too. When I left
there we all worked. Mama married ag'in. We kept on farming. I farmed
all my life.

"I got a boy what works. We own our house and all this place (one-half
acre). I don't get no help from nowhere. Seem like them what works and
tries ought to be the ones to get help and not them what don't never pay
no taxes. Fast generation it is now. But they don't bother me. I got a
good boy. Times is hard. Everything you have to buy is high."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Anna Hall (mulatto)
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 68

"I don't know nuthin' cept what I heard folks talk 'bout when I was a
child. I was born good while after that war. My folks lived in Scott
County near Jackson, Mississippi when I was little and in slavery times
too. My mother's mistress was Miss Dolly Cruder. She was a widow and run
her own farm. I don't remember her. She give her own children a cotton
patch apiece and give the women hands a patch about and they had to work
it at night. If the moon didn't give light somebody had to hold a literd
(lantern) not fur from 'em so they could see to hoe and work it out. I
think she had more land then hands, what they made was to be about a
bale around for extra money. It took all the day time working in the big
field for Miss Dolly. I heard 'em say how tired they would be and then
go work out their own patches 'fore they go to bed. I don't remember how
they said the white girls got their cotton patches worked. And that is
about all I remembers good 'nough to tell you.

"They didn't expect nothing but freedom out the war. The first my mother
heard she was working doing something and somebody say, 'What you
working fur don't you know you done free?' That the first sh