silver, then put plank, then rocks and cover with dirt and plant
grass on top. Water it to make it grow. They planted it late in the
evening. I don't know what become of it.

"When I was eight or nine years old I went to a tent show with Sam and
Hun, my brothers. We was under the tents looking at a little Giraffe;
a elephant come up behind me and touched me with its snout. I jumped
back and run under it between its legs. That night they found me a
mile from the tents asleep under some brush. They woke me up hunting
me with pine knot torches. I had cried myself to sleep. The show was
"Dan Rice and Coles Circus" at Dednen, Mississippi. They wasn't as
much afraid of snakes as wild hogs, wolves and bears.

"My mother was cooking at the Ozan Hotel at Sardis, Mississippi. I was
a nurse for a lady in town. I took the children to the square
sometimes. The first hanging I ever seen was on Court Square. One big
crowd collected. The men was not kin, they called it "Nathaniel and
DeBonepart" hanging. They was colored folks hung. One killed his
mother and the other his father. I never slept a wink for two or three
nights, I dream and jump up crying. I finally wore it off. I was a
girl and I don't know how old I was. Besides the square full of
people, Mrs. Hunter's and Mrs. Boo's yards was full of people.

"We cooked for Capt. Salter at Sardis, Mississippi.

"The first school I went to was to Mrs. J. P. Settles. He taught the
big scholars. She sent me to him and he whooped me for singing:

"Cleveland is elected
No more I expected."

I was a grown woman. They didn't want him elected I recken the reason
they didn't want to hear it. Nobody liked em teaching but the last I
heard of them he was a lawyer in Memphis. If folks learned to read a
little that was all they cared about."

Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: John Luckett
Highway No. 65, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 83

"I was born in Mississippi up above Vicksburg. I 'member the old Civil
War but I was just a little boy.

"Oh, I've seen the Yankees in Vicksburg where the battle was.

"I was 'bout ten when freedom come--nothin' but a boy.

"Clara Luckett was my mother. When the War was in Fort Pillow, I was a
small boy. I don't know 'bout nothin' else--that's all I know about
it.

"I been workin' at these mills ever since surrender. I been firin' for
'em.

"I voted the Republican ticket. I voted for General Grant a