say no more about
the whipping.

"I worked on de plantation till de war broke. Then I went into the army
with them what called themselves secesh's. I didn't fight none, never
give me a gun nor sword. I was a servant. I cooked and toted things. In
1863 I was captured by the Yankees and marched to Little Rock and sworn
in as a Union Soldier. I was sure enough soldier now. I never did any
fighting but I marched with the soldiers and worked for them whatever
they said.

"We marched from Pine Bluff on through Ft. Smith and the Indian
Territory of Oklahoma. Then we went to Leavenworth Kansas and back to
Jefferson County, Arkansas. And all that walking I did on these same
foots you see right here now.

"On this long march we camped thirty miles from Ft. Smith. We had gone
without food three days and was powerful hongry. I started out to get
something to eat. I found a sheep, I was tickled. I laughed. I could
turn the taste of that sheep meat under my tongue. When I got to camp
with the sheep I had to leave for picket duty. Hungrier than ever, I
thought of that sheep all the time. When I got back I wanted my chunk of
meat. It had been killed, cooked, eat up. Never got a grease spot on my
finger from my sheep.

"When time come for breaking up the army I went back to Jefferson county
and set to farmin'. I was free now. I didn't do so well on the land as I
didn't have mules and money to live on. I went to Dersa County and
opened up a blacksmith shop. I learned how to do this work when I was
with Dr. Waters. He had me taught by a skilled man. I learned to build
wagons too.

"I made my own tools. Who showed me how? Nobody. When I needed a hack
saw I made it out of a file--that was all I had to make it of. I had to
have it. Once I made a cotton scraper out of a piece of hardwood. I put
a steel edge on it. O yes I made everything. Can I build a wagon--make
all the parts? Every thing but the hubs for the wheels.

"You say I don't seem to see very well. Ha-ha! I don't see nuthin' at
all. I'se been plum blind for 23 years. I can't see nothin'. But I
patches my own clothes. You don't know how I can thread the needle? Look
here." I asked him to let me see his needle threader. He felt around in
a drawer and pulled out a tiny little half arrow which he had made of a
bit of tin with a pair of scissors and fine file. He pushed this through
the eye of the needle, then hooked the thread on it and pulled it back
again threading his needle