e some.' Old master just took his walking
stick and hit me over the head, and that's the onliest time he ever hit
me.

"When you got big enough to marry and was courtin' a woman on another
plantation, you couldn't bring her home with you. Old master would marry
you. He'd say 'I give this man to you' and say 'Clark, I give this woman
to you and now you is man and wife.' They never had no book of
matrimony--if they did I never seen it. Then you could go over to see
her every Saturday and stay all night.

"I used to work in the field. They didn't farm then like they do now.
They planted one row a cotton and one row a corn. That was to keep the
land from gettin' poor.

"I remember when the Yankees was comin' through I got scared because
some of the folks said they had horns. I know old master took all his
meat and carried it to another plantation.

"When freedom come old master give us all our ages. I think when they
say we was free that meant every man was to be his own boss and not be
bossed by a taskmaster. Cose old master was good to us but we wanted to
have our own way 'bout a heap a things.

"I come to Arkansas the second year of surrender. Yes'm, I voted when
Clayton was sheriff and I voted for Governor Baxter. I voted several
tickets. I was here when they had the Brooks-Baxter War. They fit not
far from where I was livin'.

"Well, that's 'bout all I can remember. My mind ain't so good now and I
got the rheumatism in my legs."

#665
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Clark Hill
818 E. Fifteenth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 84

"I was workin' 'round the house when freedom come. I was eleven.

"Born in Georgia--Americus, Georgia. Used to go with my young master to
Corinth after the mail. We'd ride horseback with me right behind him. He
used to carry me to church too on the back seat to open the gates.

"They worked me in the loom room too. Had to hold the broche at the
reel. I was glad when my young master called me out to go after the
mail. Then they worked me in the smokehouse.

"I never had no schoolin' a tall. What little I know I learned since I
married. My wife was a good scholar.

"I thank the Lord he spared me. Eighty-four is pretty old.

"I come here to Pine Bluff in '66. Wasn't no town here then. Just some
little shacks on Barraque. And Third Street was called Catfish Street.

"They was fifty carloads come here to Arkansas when I