On each succeeding evening
according to Tines Kendricks the call of the bird came clearly through
the evening's stillness and each time he noticed that the cry came
from a spot nearer the home until at last the bird seemed perched
beneath the wide veranda and early on the morning following, a very
highly excited redbird darted from tree to tree on the front lawn.
The redbird continued these peculiar actions for several minutes after
which it flew and came to rest on the roof of the old colonial mansion
directly above the room formerly occupied by the young master. Tines
was convinced now that the end had come for Sam Kendricks and that his
approaching death had been foretold by the whippoorwill and that each
evening as the bird approached nearer the house and uttered his night
cry just so was the life of young Sam Kendricks slowly nearing its
close and the actions of the redbird the following day was revealing
evidence to Tines that the end had come to his young master which
indeed it had as proven by a message the family received late in the
morning of this same day.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Frank Kennedy,
Holly Grove, Arkansas
Age: 65 or 70?

"My parents' name was Hannah and Charles Kennedy. They b'long to
Master John Kennedy. I was raised round Aberdeen, Mississippi but they
come in there after freedom. I heard em talk but I couldn't tell you
much as where they come from. They said a young girl bout got her
growth would auction off for more than any man. They used em for cooks
and house women. I judge way they talked she be fifteen or sixteen
years old. They brought $1,600 and $2,000. If they was scared up,
where they been beat, they didn't sell off good. I knowed Master John
Kennedy.

"The Ku Klux come round but they didn't bother much. They would bother
if you stole something. Another thing they made em stay close bout
their own places and work. I don't know bout freedom.

"I been farmin' and sawmillin' at Clarendon. I gets jobs I can do on
the farms now. I got rheumatism so I can't get round. I had this
trouble five years or longer now.

"The times is worse, so many folks stealin' and killin'. The young
folks don't work steady as they used to. Used to get figured out all
you raised till now they refuse to work less en the money in sight.
They don't work hard as I allers been workin'.

"I got one girl married. I don't have no land nor home. I works