“Them Ku Klux was hateful too, but they never bothered my father’s house. They beat one man—Steve McLaughlin—till he couldn’t get back to the house. They beat him from the soles of his feet to the top of his head.
“We had a plenty to eat in slave times. They fed us good. I never did work in the field—I was raised up a house gal.
“After freedom my father had me in the field.
“I used to cut and split a many a hundred rails in a day and didn’t mind it neither.
“I used to like to work—would work now if I was able. And I’d rather work in the field any day as work in the house. The people where I lived can tell you how I worked. I didn’t make my living by rascality. I worked like my father raised me. Oh, I haven’t forgot how my old father raised me.
“Never went to school but one day in my life. I can’t read.
“I didn’t come to Arkansas till after I was free. I been livin’ here so long I can’t tell you how many years.
“I married young and I’m the mother of six chillun.
“I think a heap of the colored folks is better off free, but a heap of ’em don’t appreciate their freedom.
“Heap of the younger generation is all right and then they’s a heap of ’em all wrong.