a big kettle of mush. When he was good he done better. Give
'em more for supper.

"Freedom--soldiers come by two miles long look like. We followed them.
There was a crowd following. Wiley Lyons had no children; he adopted a
boy and a girl. Me and the boy was growing up together. Me and the
white boy (fifteen or sixteen years old, I reckon we was) followed
them. They said that was Grant's army. I don't know. 'That made us
free' they told us. The white boy was free, he just went to see what
was happening. We sure did see! We went by Canton to Vicksburg when
fighting quit. Folks rejoiced, and then went back wild. Smart ones
soon got work. Some got furnished a little provisions to help keep
them from starving. Mr. Wiley Lyons come got us after five months. We
hung around my brother that had been in the War. I don't know if he
was a soldier or a waiter. We worked around Master Lyons' house at
Canton till he died. I started farming again with him.

"I get $8 a month pension and high as things is that is a powerful
blessing but it ain't enough to feed me good. It cost more to go after
the commodities up at Marion than they come to [amount to in value]."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Virginia Jackson,
Helena, Arkansas
Age: 74
[Date Stamp: MAY 31 1938]

"Mother said I was born the same year peace was declared. I was born
before the Civil War close, I reckon. I was born in Tunica,
Mississippi. Mother belong to Mistress Cornelia and Master John Hood.
He come from Alabama in wagons and brought mother and whole lot of
'em, she said, to Tunica, Mississippi. My mother and father never
sold. They told me that. She said she was with the master and he give
her to father. He ask her did she want him and ask him if he want her.
They lived on joint places. They slept together on Wednesday and
Saturday nights. He stayed at Hood's place on Sunday. They was owned
by different masters. They didn't never say 'bout stepping over no
broom. He was a Prince. When he died she married a man named Russell.
I never heard her say what his name was. My father was Mathew Prince.
They was both field hands. I never knowed my father. I called my
stepfather popper. I always did say mother.

"Mother said her master didn't tell them it was freedom. Other folks
got told in August. They passed it 'round secretly. Some Yankees come
asked if they was getting paid for picking cotton in September. They
told