“Yes, I been here so long. I think the younger generation is goin’ the downward way. They ain’t studyin’ nothin’ but wickedness. Yes, honey, they tell me the future generation is goin’ a do this and goin’ a do that, and they ain’t done nothin’. And God don’t like it.
“My white folks comes to see me and say as long as they got bread, I got it.
“I went to school the second year after surrender. I can read but I ain’t got no glasses now. I want you to see this letter my mother sent me in 1867. My baby sister writ it. Yes, honey, I keeps it for remembrance.
“Don’t know nothin’ funny that happened ’ceptin stealin’ my old master’s company’s hoss and runnin’ a race. White chillun too. Them as couldn’t ride sideways ridin’ straddle. Better not ride Rob Roy—that was old master’s ridin’ hoss and my mistis saddle hoss. That was the hoss he was talkin’ bout ridin’ to the war when the last battle was fit in Helena. But he was too old to go to war.
“Well, goodbye, honey—if I don’t see you no more, come across the Jordan.”
#787
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Gillie Hill
813 Arch Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: About 45
“My grandmother told me that they had to chink up the cracks so that the light wouldn’t get out and do their washing and ironing at night. When they would hear the overseers or the paterolers coming ’round (I don’t know which it was), they would put the light out and keep still till they had passed on. Then they would go right on with the washing and ironing.
“They would have to wash and iron at night because they were working all day.