me one else if they wanted to
'cause they were free and there wasn't any more slavery.

"I was born after slavery. Peace was declared in 1865, wasn't it? When
the War ended I don't know where my father was living, but I was bred
and born in Woodruff near Augusta in Arkansas. All the Booneses were
there when I knew anything about it. They owned hundreds and hundreds of
acres of ground. I was born on old Captain Boone's farm.

"My father was always a farmer. He farmed till he died. They were
supposed to give him a pension, but he never did get it. They wrote to
us once or twice and asked for his number and things like that, but they
never did do nothing. You see he fit in the Civil War. Wait a minute. We
had his old gun for years. My oldest brother had that gun. He kept that
gun and them old blue uniforms with big brass buttons. My old master had
a horn he blowed to call the slaves with, and my brother had that too.
He kept them things as particular as you would keep victuals.

"Yes, my father fit in the Civil War. I have seen his war clothes as
many times as you have hairs on your head I reckon. He had his old sword
and all. They had a hard battle down in Mississippi once he told me. Our
house got burnt up and we lost his honorable discharge. But he was
legally discharged. But he didn't git nothin' for it, and we didn't
neither.

"My father was whipped by the pateroles several times. They run him and
whipped him. My daddy slipped out many a time. But they never caught him
when he slipped out. They never whipped him for slippin' out. That was
during the time he was a slave. The slaves wasn't allowed to go from one
master to another without a pass. My father said that sometimes, his
young master would play a joke on him. My father couldn't read. His
young master would give him a pass and the pass would say, 'Whip Arthur
Boone's --- and pass him out. When he comes back, whip his --- again and
pass him back.' His young master called hisself playin' a joke on him.
They wouldn't hit him more than half a dozen licks, but they would make
him take his pants down and they would give them to him jus' where the
pass said. They wouldn't hurt him much. It was more devilment than
anything else. He would say, 'Whut you hittin' me for when I got a
pass?' and they would say, 'Yes, you got a pass, but it says whip your
---.' And they would show it to him, and then they would say, 'You'll
git the res' when you come back.' My father could