Text of Interview (Unedited)
Talitha: “Howdy, chillun, come in. Naw suh, Jack ain’t heah right now. He down tuh the thicket back uv de house gittin’ some wood. Naw suh, he won’t be gone long. He soon be back. You all come in and set on the gallery. Here’s a cheer, missy. He be back in no time tall.
“You wants to know how old I am? I was born April 14, 1864 before the niggers was freed in ’65.
“My mother was a field woman (worked in the field) and had seven chillun when set free. Her mistress raised her from three weeks old. Her mother burned to death in a house on the plantation. Our home was ’bout four miles east of Arcadia, Louisiana, or rather Miss Sarah Given’s house was, and we stayed on wid her until I was a big girl, plowin’ and hoeing.
“No ma’am, I never did go to no parties. I was never ’lowed to go. I been a member of the church since I was ten and now I’m seventy-three.
“I first married a man by the name of Williams and had three chillun by him, two boys and one girl. Then I was a widow fifteen years before I married Jack. We ain’t never had no chillun, but Jack had three chillun and I helped to raise them and I’ve helped raise a bunch of his gran’chillun.
“I believes I hear Jack back there now.”
Jack: “Howdy, howdy! So you is back for more tales ’bout long ago. I’se seventy-three and I been in this world a long time I tell you.”
Talitha: “Now, Jack, you knows you is heap older ’n me and I’m seventy-three and I was born jes ’bout a year befo the War closed and you say you was a big chap then.”
Jack: “Well, I guess I was around six years old when the War started. I was a good big chap. I ’member one evening ’bout three o’clock I was settin’ out in the yard playin’ with a mate of mine—Johnnie Cook. I guess you would call him my mate; he was my mistress’s boy and ’bout my age and we played together all the time even if I was black. I was the only black boy on the place, all the other cullud chillun was gals. Us chaps was out in the yard making frog nesties with our bare feet in the sand. They was fightin’ in Vicksburg then. They was doing a whole lot of shooting. You could hear it one right after the other and it got so smoky. I thought it was thunder and said something ’bout hit. Mistress was setting on the gallery sewing and when I said that she said, ‘Aw Lawd, that ain’t no thunder,’ but she didn’ tell us what hit wuz.”