't have a big farm. He had a lot of mules and horses at
times. They raised some cotton but mostly corn and oats. Miss Liza Jane
left b'fore us. We all cried when she left. She shut up the house and
give the women folks all the keys. We lived on what she left there and
went on raising more hogs and tending to the cows. We left everything.
We come to Hernando, Mississippi. Pa farmed up there and run his
blacksmith shop on the side. My parents died close to Horn Lake. Mama
was the mother of ten and I am the mother of eight. I got two living,
one here and one in Memphis. I lives wid 'em and one niece in Natches I
live with some.

"I was scared to death of the Ku Klux Klan. They come to our house one
night and I took my little brother and we crawled under the house and
got up in the fireplace. It was big 'nough fer us to sit. We went to
sleep. We crawled out next day. We seen 'em coming, run behind the house
and crawled under there. They knocked about there a pretty good while.
We told the folks about it. I don't know where they could er been. I
forgot it been so long. I was 'fraider of the Ku Klux Klan den I ever
been 'bout snakes. No snakes 'bout our house. Too many of us.

"I tried to get some aid when it first come 'bout but I quit. My
children and my niece take keer or me. I ain't wantin' fer nothin' but
good health. I never do feel good. I done wore out. I worked in the
field all my life.

"A heap of dis young generation is triflin' as they can be. They don't
half work. Some do work hard and no 'pendence to be put in some 'em.
'Course they steal 'fo' dey work. I say some of 'em work. Times done got
so fer 'head of me I never 'speck to ketch-up. I never was scared of
horses. I sure is dese automobiles. I ain't plannin' no rides on them
airplanes. Sure you born I ain't. Folks ain't acting lack they used to.
They say so I got all I can get you can do dout. It didn't used to be no
sich way. Times is heap better but heap of folks is worse 'an ever folks
been before."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: George Benson,
Ezell Quarters, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 80
Occupation: Cotton Farmer

"I was here in slavery days--yes ma'm, I was here. When I come here,
colored people didn't have their ages. The boss man had it. After
surrender, boss man told me I ought to keep up with my age, it'd be a
use to me some day, but I didn't do it.

"I member the soldiers would play with me