hole heap bein' like they was fo' the
War. They's good darkies, and some aint so good." Me and my man had
seven children all dead but two, Bob lives with me. I don't worry
'bout food. We ain't come no ways starvin'. I have all I want to eat.
Bob he works for Missus Wade every mornin' tendin' to her flowers and
afternoons works for him self. She owns this house, lets us live in
it. She's good all right, good woman."

"I like flowers too, but ain't got no water, no more. Water's scarce.
Someone turned off the hydrant."

"I belong to the Baptist church a long while."

"Do you know Gate-eye Fisher?" When I said "yes, I went down to talk
to him last week," she said, "well, law me, Gate-eye ain't no fool.
He's the best cook as ever struck a stove. He married my baby sister,
Milly Jane's child. Harriet Lee Ann, she's my niece. She left him,
said she'd never go back no more to him. She's somewhere over in
Oklahoma."

"And did you see Doc Flowers? Yes'm, I was mos' a mother to him.

"One time my man and me heard a peckin' at the do'. We's eatin'
supper. I went to the do' and there was Doc. He and his step-pa, Ole
Uncle Ike, had a fight and Doc come to us and stayed 'bout three
years. He started cryin'."

"Yes'm my Pa and Ma had belonged to Mister John Barker, before he
giv'd my Ma to Miss Becky, my Pa was a leather worker. He could make
shoes, and boots and slippers."

"Yes'm, Good bye. Come back again honey. Yes'm I'd like a little
snuff--not the sweet kind. It makes my teeth feel better to have
snuff. I ain't got much but snags, and snuff, a little mite helps
them."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: William Kirk
1910 W. Sixth Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 84

"I been here ever since 1853--yes ma'm! Cose I 'member the war! I tell
you I've seen them cannon balls goin' up just like a balloon. I wasn't
big enough to work till peace was declared but they had my mammy and
daddy under the lash. One good thing 'bout my white folks, they give
the hands three months' schoolin' every year. My mammy and daddy got
three months' schoolin' in the old country. Some said that was General
Washington's proclamation, but some of 'em wouldn't hear to it. When
peace was declared, some of the niggers had as good education as the
white man. That was cause their owners had 'lowed it to 'em.

"They used to put us in cells under the house so the Yankees couldn't
get us. Old master's name