“Mother never talked much about slavery other than I have told you. She said during of the War women split and sawed rails and laid fences all winter like men. Food got scarce. They sent milk to the soldiers. Meat was scarce. After she was free she went on like she had been living at John McAlway’s. She said she didn’t know how to start doing for herself.
“Some of our young generation is all right and some of them is too thoughtless. Times is too fast. Folks is shortening their days by fast living. Hurting their own bodies. Forty years ago folks lived like we ought to be living now.”
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Pauline Howell Nickname Pearl
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 65 or 70?
“I was born in Paris, Tennessee and come to Arkansas when I was a child. I don’t know how old I am but my mama knowed ’bout when I was born. It warnt long after the war. I past sixty-five and it is nearer seventy from what she said. She ain’t been dead long. She was about a hundred years old. I. C. switch killed her. She was going cross there to Fisher Body and the switch engine struck her head. She dropped something and stooped to pick it up or the engine wouldn’t touched her. She lived in Memphis.
“She was born at Oaks, Tennessee. She took me down to see the cabin locks where she was born. They had rotted down and somebody lived in the big house. It had gone to rack then pretty bad. My father’s master was George Harris. He was Governor of Tennessee. My mother’s mistress at Oaks was Miss Ann LaGuion (or maybe Gwion). I never heard her husband’s name. They had several farms and on each farm was the cabin locks (little houses all in a row or two rows). The houses was exactly alike. Grandma cooked for the white folks and mama nursed. The baby was a big fat heavy sort, a boy, and it was so heavy she couldn’t hardly pick it up. She had to carry it around all day long. When night come she was wore out. There was several of them. When she go to their houses in Memphis they honor her. They take her down town and buy her shoes and dresses. Buy her whatever she say she want. They say they was proud of her. She was a little black guinea woman (low and stocky). Not long go Mr. (white man) in Brinkley asked me when my ma coming back here. Said he ain’t seed her for so long. I tole him she was dead. He said he have to go tell Mrs. ____ (his wife). She come out here and stay and piece quilts. She sewed so nice. Made pretty little stitches. She’d take the most time and pains fixing the pieces together to look pretty. She’d set there and sew and me over there and tell me bout how she was raised and I’d cry. Cry cause she had so hard a time when she was a girl.
“The old master sent my father to Liverpool, England to bury his money. He was his own son anyhow. Sent him with his money to keep the Yankees from taking it. My aunt, my father and Uncle Jesse all his own children. Course old mistress love them little children like her own. She couldn’t help herself.
“Mariah Steed went in Governor Harrises name after freedom. So did Randall Travis Harris.
“My mama said she was never sold but her sister and her children were. She was put upon the auction stile and all her little children. A man in Mobile, Alabama bought her. They never did see nor hear tell of her no more. The reason they sold her was she killed two men overseers. They couldn’t manage her. The last one was whipping her with a black snake whip and she grabbed him. Grabbed his privates and pulled ’em out by the roots. That the way she killed both the overseers. Cause she knowed that was show death. My mama said that was the nicest little soft man—the last man she killed. She said he just clum the walls in so much misery that night.
“She said they would whisper after they go to bed. They used pine torches for lights. They had to cover up the fire—cover up fire in the ashes so it be coals to kindle a fire in the morning—put out the light pretty early. Old master come stand round outside see if they all gone to bed.