as pregnant same as other times. She said the Yankees took
the pantry house and cleaned it up. They broke in it. I'm so glad the
Yankees come. They so pretty. I love 'em. Whah me? I can tell 'em by
the way they talk and acts. You ain't none. You don't talk like 'em.
You don't act like 'em. I watched you yeste'd'y. You don't walk like
'em. You act like the rest of these southern women to me.

"Mother said a gang of Yankees came to the quarters to haul the
children off and they said, 'We are going to free you all. Come on.'
She said, 'My husband in the field.' They sent for 'im. He come hard
as he could. They loaded men and all on them two gunboats. The boat
was anchored south of Tom Henry McNeill's plantation. He didn't know
they was gone. When they got here old General Hindman had forty
thousand back here in the hills. They fired in. The Yankees fired! The
Yankees said they was goin' to drive 'em back and they scared 'em out
of here and give folks that brought in them gunboat houses to live in.
Mammy went to helping the Yankees. They paid her. That was 'fore
freedom. I loves the Yankees. General Hindman's house was tore down up
there to build that schoolhouse (high school). The Yankees said they
was goin' to water their horses in the Mississippi River by twelve
o'clock or take hell. I know my mammy and daddy wasn't skeered 'cause
the Yankees taking keer of 'em and they was the ones had the cannons
and gunboats too. I jus' love the Yankees fer freeing us. They run
white folks outer the houses and put colored folks in 'em. Yankees had
tents here. They fed the colored folks till little after 'mancipation.
When the Yankees went off they been left to root hog er die. White
folks been free all der lives. They got no need to be poor. I went to
school to white teachers. They left here, folks didn't do 'em right.
They set 'em off to theirselves. Wouldn't keep 'em, wouldn't walk
'bout wid 'em. They wouldn't talk to 'em. The Yankees sont 'em down
here to egercate us up wid you white folks. Colored folks do best
anyhow wid black folks' children. I went to Miss Carted and to Mrs.
Mason. They was a gang of 'em. They bo'ded at the hotel, one of the
hotels kept 'em all. They stayed 'bout to theirselves. 'Course the
white folks had schools, their own schools.

"Ku Klux--They dressed up and come in at night, beat up the men 'bout
here in Helena. Mammy washed and ironed here in Helena till she died.
I never did do much of that kinder wor