"The old man died what learned me how to walk rice levies. I still work on the place. Everybody don't know how to walk levies. It will kill an old man. Your feet stay wet and cold all time. I do wear hip boots but my feet stay cold and damp. I got down with the rheumatism and jes' now got so I can walk.
"I got a wife and three living children. They all married and gone.
"Times is hard for old folks and changed so much. Children used to get jobs and take care of the granny folks and the old parents. They can't take care of themselves no more it look like. I don't know how to take the young generation. They are drifting along with the fast times.
"I applied but don't get no pension."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Willie Doyld (male), Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 78
[-- -- 1938]
"I was born in Grenada, Mississippi. My parents belong to the same family of white folks. My moster was Jim Doyld. His wife was Mistress Karoline Doyld. Well as I recollect they had four childen. My parent's name was Hannah and William Doyld. I'm named for em. They was three of us childen. They belong to same family of white folks for a fact. I heard em say Moster Jim bought em offen the block at the same time. He got em at Galveston, Texas. He kept five families of slaves on his place well as I recollect.
"My pa was Moster Jim's ox driver. He drove five or six yokes at a time. He walk long side of em, wagons loaded up. He toted a long cowhide whoop. He toted it over his shoulder. When he'd crack it you could hear his whoop half a mile. Knowed he was comin' on up to the house. Them oxen would step long, peartin up when he crack his whoop over em. He'd be haulin' logs, wood, cotton, corn, taters, sorghum cane and stuff. He nearly always walked long side of em; sometimes he'd crawl upon the front wagon an' ride a piece.
"He was a very good moster I recken far as I knows. They go up there, get sompin' to eat. He give em a midlin' meat. He give us clothes. Folks wore heep of clothes then. They got whoopin's if they not do lack they tole em to do—plenty whoopin's! He kept ten dogs, they call bear dogs. They hunt fox, wolves, deer, bear, birds. Them dogs died wid black tongue. Every one of em died.