about Arkansas and came here.

"When he came here, somehow or other, he got in a fight with a colored
man. He got the advantage of that man and killed him. The officers
came after him, but he left and I ain't never seen nor heard of him
since. He went and left my poor mother and her five children alone.
But I was getting big enough to be some help. And we made crops and
got along somehow.

"I don't know what we expected. I never heerd anyone say a word. I was
children you know, and it was mighty little that children knew because
the old folks did not talk with them much.

What They Got

"I never heerd of anything any of them got. I never heerd of any of
them getting anything except work. I don't recollect any pension or
anything being given them--nothing but work.

Folks on this place would leave and go over on that place, and folks
on that place would come over here. They ate as long as the white
folks ate. We stayed with our old master and mistress, (Mr. Asa Brown
and Mrs. Sallie Brown).

Good Master and Mistress

"They did not whip us. They didn't whip nobody they had. They were
good white folks. My mother never was whipped. She was not whipped
after the surrender and she wasn't whipped before. [We lived in the
same house as our master] [HW: (in margin) see p. 6] and we ate what
he ate.

Wives and Husbands

"There was another woman my master owned. Her husband belonged to
another white man. My father also belonged to another white man. Both
of them would come and stay with their wives at night and go back to
work with their masters during the day. My mother had her kin folks
who lived down in the country and my mother used to go out and visit
them. I had a grandmother way out in the country. My mother used to
take me and go out and stay a day or so. She would arrange with
mistress and master and go down Saturday and she would take me along
and leave her other children with this other woman. Sunday night she
would make it back. Sometimes she wouldn't come back until Monday.

"It didn't look like she was any freer after freedom than she was
before. She was free all the time she was a slave. They never whipped
her. Asa Brown never whipped his niggers.

Letting Out Slaves

"Asa Brown used to rent out his niggers, sometimes. You know, they
used to rent them. But he never rented my mother though. He needed her
all the time. She was the cook. He needed her all the time and he kept
her all the time.