Young
folks coming on slacker and slacker every day. Don't know how to do,
don't want to know. They get by better 'en I did. I work in the field
and I can't hardly get by. I see folks do nothing all the time. Seem
like they happy. Times is hard for some, easy for some. I want to live
in the country like I is 'cause I belongs there. I can work and be
satisfied! I did own my home. I reckon I still do. I got a little cow
and some chickens."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Frank Briles
817 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: About 82 or 83

[HW: Gives up the Ghost]

"I was born right here in Arkansas. My father's name was Moses Briles.
My mother's name was Judy Briles. Her name before she was married I
don't know. They belonged to the Briles. I don't know their first name
either.

"My father was under slavery. He chopped cotton and plowed and scraped
cotton. That is where I got my part from. He would carry two rows along
at once. I was little and couldn't take care of a row by myself. I was
born down there along the time of the War, and my father didn't live
long afterwards. He died when they was settin' them all free. He was a
choppin' for the boss man and they would set them up on blocks and sell
them. I don't know who the man was that did the selling, but they tell
me they would sell them and buy them.

"I am sick now. My head looks like it's goin' to bust open.

"I have heard them tell about the pateroles. I didn't know them but I
heard about them. Them and the Ku Klux was about the same thing. Neither
one of them never did bother my folks. It was just like we now, nobody
was 'round us and there wasn't no one to bother you at all at Briles'
plantation. Briles' plantation I can't remember exactly where it was. It
was way down in the west part of Arkansas. Yes, I was born way back
south--east--way back. I don't know what the name of the place was but
it was in Arkansas. I know that. I don't know nothing about that. My
father and mother came from Virginia, they said. My father used to drive
cattle there, my mother said. I don't know nothin' except what they told
me.

"I learnt a little some thing from my folks. I think of more things
every time I talk to somebody. I know one thing. The woman that bossed
me, she died. That was about--Lord I was a little bitty of a fellow,
didn't know nothin' then. She made clothes for me. She kept me in the
house all the time. S