I have a cousin named Harry Jordan. He lives 'round here somewheres.
You'll find him. I don't know where he lives. He says he knows just
how old I am, and he says that I'm sixty-eight. My daughter here says
I'm seventy. And my son thinks I'm older. Don't nobody know. My daddy
never told me. My mama was near dead when I was born; what could she
tell me? So how am I to know?

"My mother was born in slavery. She was a slave. I don't know nothin'
'bout it. My mother came from Tennessee. That's what she told me. I
was born in a log cabin right here in Arkansas. I was born in a log
cabin right in front of the white folks' big house. It was not far
from the white folks' graveyard. You know they had a graveyard of
their own. Old Bill Pemberton, that was the name of the man owned the
place I was born on. But he wasn't my mother's owner.

"I don't know where my father come from. My mother said she had a good
time in slavery. She spoke of lots of things but I don't remember
them.

"My grandma told me about when she went to church she used to carry
her good clothes in a bundle. When she got near there, she would put
them on, and hide her old clothes under a rock. When she come out from
the meeting, she would have to put on her old clothes again to go home
in. She didn't dare let the white folks see her in good clothes.

"I think my mother's white people were named Jordans. My mother and
them all belonged to the young mistress. I think her name was Jordan.
Yes, that's what it was--Jordan.

"Grandmammy had so many children. She had nineteen children--just like
me. My grandmammy was a great big old red woman. She had red hair too.
I never heard her say nothin' 'bout nobody whippin' her and my
granddaddy. They whipped all them children though. My mama just had
six children.

"Mama said her master tried to keep her in slavery after freedom. My
mama worked at the spinning-wheel. When she heard the folks say they
was through with the War, she was at the spinning-wheel. The white
folks ought a tol' them they was free but they didn't. Old Jordan
carried them down in De Valla Bluff. He carried them down
there--called hisself gittin' away from the Yankees. But the Yankees
told mama to quit workin'. They tol' her that she was free. My mama
said she was in there at the wheel spinning and the house was full of
white men settin' there lookin' at her. You don't see that sort of
thing now.

"They had a man--I don't know what his name was.