tle
education and think they can do anything and get by with it. And
there's a lot of em down here on this Cummins farm now."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Frank Larkin
618 E. Fifteenth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 85

"I was somewhere 'bout twelve years old when the Civil War ended. I
was the carriage driver, fire maker, and worked in the field some.

"I was bred and born in Virginia and I was sold; I was sold. My first
old boss was a Rhodes and he sold me to a man named Larkin. See, we
had to take our names from our boss. Me and my mother both was sold. I
was somewhere between seven and eight years old.

"Then old boss give my mother to his daughter and she carried her to
Texas and he kept me. Never have seen her since.

"He was good to me sometimes but he worked us night and day. Had a
pile of wool as big as this room and we had to pick it and card it
'fore we went to bed. Old boss was sittin' right there by us. Oh,
yes'm.

"Old boss was better to me than old missis. She'd want to whip me and
he'd say he'd do it; and he'd take me down to the quarters and have a
cow-hide whip and he would whip a tree and say, 'Now you holler like
I'm whippin' you.' I'd just be a bawlin' too I'm tellin' you but he
never hit me nary a lick.

"All the chillun, when they was clearin' up new ground, had to pick up
brush and pile it up. Ever'body knowed how much he had to do. Ever'
woman knowed how much she had to weave. They made ever'thing--shoes
and all.

"Them Yankees sure did bad--burned up the cotton and the corn. I seen
one of 'em get up in a tree and take his spyglass and look all
around; directly he'd come down and went just as straight to that
cotton as a bird to its nest. Oh, yes ma'am, they burned up
everything. I was a little scared of 'em but they said they wasn't
goin' to hurt us. Old master had done left home and gone to the woods.
It was enough to scare you--all them guns stacked up and bayonets that
long and just as keen. Come in and have old missis cook for 'em.
Sometimes they'd go and leave lots to eat for the colored folks and
maybe give 'em a blanket. Wouldn't give old missis anything; try to
make her tell where the money was though.

"When they said Vicksburg was captured, old master come out hollerin'
and cryin' and said they taken Vicksburg and we was free. Some of 'em
stayed and some of 'em left. Me and my grandma and my aunt stayed
there after we was