“Well, I didn’t zactly live in slavery times. I was born in 1864, the 4th of July. They said it was on the William Moore place four miles from Chattanooga but I was in Georgia when I commenced to remember—in Fort Valley—just a little town.
“I been in Arkansas sixty-five years the first day of January. Come to the old Post of Arkansas in 1873. I been right here on this spot forty-three years. Made a many a bale of cotton on the Barrow place.
“Went to school three weeks right down here in ‘Linkum’ County. I could read a little but couldn’t write any much.
“I been married to this wife forty years. My fust wife dead.
“I lived in ‘Linkum’ County eight years and been in Jefferson County ever since.
“Three years ago I was struck by a car and I been blind two years. I can just ’zern’ the light. When I was able to be about I used to vision what it would be like to be blind and now I know.
“Yes’m, I just come here on the eve of the breakin’ up. I seed the Yankees in Georgia after freedom. They called em Bluejackets.
“All my life I have farmed—farmed.”