me after us. Told as we didn't belong to him
no more--said we was free as he was. Yankees sent him after us. All the
folks come back--all but one famlly.

"I had tolerable good owners. Miss Fanny Brewster good to me.

"Old master got drunk so much. Come home sometimes muddy as a hog. All
his chillun was girls. I nursed all the girls but one.

"I was a mighty dancer when I was young--danced all night long.
Paddyrollers run us home from dancin' one night.

"I member one song we used to sing:

'Hop light lady
Cake was all dough--
Never mind the weather,
So the wind don't blow.'

"How many chillun I have? Les see--count em up. Ida, Willie, Clara--had
six.

"Some of the young folks nowadays pretty rough. Some of em do right and
some don't.

"Never did go to school. Coulda went but papa died and had to go to
work.

"I thinks over old times sometimes by myself. Didn't know what freedom
was till we was free and didn't hardly know then.

"Well, it's been a long time. All the Brewsters and the Bransons dead
and I'm still here--blind. Been blind eight years."

Waters Brooks
1814 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Ark.
Retired railroad worker, No. Pac. 75
[TR: Information moved from bottom of each page.]

[HW: A Railroad Work History]

I was only three years old when peace (1865) was declared. I was born in
1862. Peace was declared in 1865. I remember seeing plenty of men that
they said the white folks never whipped. I remember seeing plenty of men
that they said bought their own freedom.

I remember a woman that they said fought with the overseer for a whole
day and stripped him naked as the day he was born. She was Nancy Ward.
Her owner was named Billie Ward. He had an overseer named Roper. Her
husband ran away from the white folks and stayed three years. He was in
the Bayou in a boat and the bottom dropped out of it. He climbed a tree
and hollered for someone to tel his master to come and get him if he
wanted him.

FATHER

My father's master was John T. Williams. He went into the army--the
rebel army--and taken my father with him. I don't know how long my
father stayed in the army but I was only 6 months old when he died. He
had some kind of stomach trouble and died a natural death.

MOTHER

My mother and father both belonged to Joe Ward at first but Ward died
and his widow married Williams. My mother told me and not only told me
but showed me knots across her shoulder where th