for
all I have yet.

"I have voted--not lately. I think my color outer vote like the white
folks do long as they do right. The women takin' the mens' places too
much it pears like. But they may be honester. I don't know how it will
be."

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Mrs. A. (Adrianna) W. Kerns
800 Victory Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 85

"When they first put me in the field, they put me and Viney to pick up
brush and pile it, to pick up stumps, and when we got through with
that, she worked on her mother's row and I worked on my aunt's row
until we got large enough to have a row to ourselves. Me and Viney
were the smallest children in the field and we had one row each. Some
of the older people had two rows and picked on each row.

"My birthday is on the fourth of November, and I am eighty-five years
old. You can count back and see what year I was born in.

Relatives

"My mother's first child was her master's child. I was the second
child but my father was Reuben Dortch. He belonged to Colonel Dortch.
Colonel Dortch died in Princeton, Arkansas, Dallas County, about
eighty-six miles from here. He died before the War. I never saw him.
But he was my father's first master. He used to go and get goods, and
he caught this fever they had then--I think it was cholera--and died.
After Colonel Dortch died, his son-in-law, Archie Hays, became my
father's second master. Were all with Hays when we were freed.

"My father's father was a white man. He was named Wilson Rainey. I
never did see him. My mother has said to me many a time that he was
the meanest man in Dallas County. My father's mother was named Viney.
That was her first name. I forget the last name. My mother's name was
Martha Hays, and my grandmother's name on my mother's side was Sallie
Hays. My maiden name was Adrianna Dortch.

A Devoted Slave Husband

"I have heard my mother tell many a time that there was a slave man
who used to take his own dinner and carry it three or four miles to
his wife. His wife belonged to a mean white man who wouldn't give them
what they needed to eat. He done without his dinner in order that she
might have enough. Where would you find a man to do that now? Nowadays
they are taking the bread away from their wives and children and
carrying it to some other woman.

Patrollers

"A Negro couldn't leave his master's place unless he had a pass from
his master. If he didn't