“Young folks is so strong and happy they is different from old folks, young mistress.”
#774
Interviewer: Watt McKinney
Person interviewed: Henry Green
Barton, Arkansas
Age: 90
Uncle Henry Green, an ex-slave ninety years of age, is affectionately known throughout a large part of Phillips County as “Happy Day”. This nickname, acquired in years long past, was given him no doubt partly on account of his remarkably happy disposition, but mainly on account of his love for the old religious song, “Happy Day”, that Uncle Henry has enjoyed so long to sing and the verses of which his voice still carries out daily over the countryside each morning promptly at daybreak and again at sundown.
Uncle Henry and his old wife, Louisa, live with Uncle Henry’s sister, Mattie Harris, herself seventy-five years of age, on a poor forty acre farm that Mattie owns in the Hyde Park community just off the main highway between Walnut Corner and West Helena. Henry acts as janitor at the Lutherian Church at Barton and the three do such farming as they are able on the thin acres and with the few dollars that they receive each month from the Welfare Board together with the supplies furnished them at the Relief Office these three old folks are provided with the bare necessities sufficient to sustain them.
Uncle Henry, his wife and sister Mattie are the most interesting of the several ex-slave Negroes in this county whom it has been my pleasure and good fortune to interview. As I sat with them on the porch of their old, rambling log house the following incidents and account of their lives were given with Uncle Henry talking and Mattie and Louisa offering occasional explanations and corrections:
“Yes sir, Boss Man, my right name is Henry Green but eberybody, dey all calls me ‘Happy Day’. Dat is de name whut mos’ all calls me fer so long now dat heap of de folks, dey don’t eben know dat my name is sho nuf Henry Green. I sho ain’t no baby, Boss Man, kase I is been here er long time, dat I is, and near as I kin cum at hit I is ninety years old er mo, kase Mattie sey dat de lady in de cote-house tell her dat I is ninety-fo, en dat wuz three years er go. I is er old nigger, Boss Man, en er bout de onliest old pusson whut is lef er round here in dis part of de county. I means whut is sho nuf old, en what wuz born way bak in de slabery times, way fo de peace wuz ’clared.
“Us wuz borned, dat is me en sister Mattie, er way bak dere in Souf Alabama, down below Montgomery, in de hills, en on de big place whut our ole marster, William Green, had, en whar de tanyard wuz. Yo see, old marster, he runned er big tanyard wid all de res of he bizness, whar dey tan de hides en mek de shoes en leather harness en sich lak, en den too, marster, he raise eberything on de place. All whut he need fer de niggers en he own fambly, lak cotton, wheat, barley, rice en plenty hogs en cows. Iffen peace hadn’t er been ’clared en Marse Billy hadn’t er died I wuz gwine ter be Marse Billy’s property, kase I wuz already willed ter Marse Billy. Marse Billy wuz old Marster William Green’s oldest son chile, en Marse Billy claimed me all de while. Marse Billy, he went off to de War whar he tukkin sik en died in de camp, ’fore he cud eben git in de fitin.
“Atter de War wuz ober en peace cum, my grandmammy en my grandpappy, dey cum en got my mammy en all us chillun en tuk us wid dem ter Montgomery, en dat wuz whar us wuz when dem two Yankee mens immigrated us here ter Arkansas. Dey immigrated er bout er hundred head er niggers at de same time dat us cum. My grandpappy en my grandmammy, dey didn’t belong ter old Marster William Green. I jist don’t know whut white folks dey did belong ter, but I knows dat dey sho cum en got my mammy en us chillun. Old marster, he neber mine dem er leavin’ en tole ’em dat dey free, en kin go if us want ter go, en when us left old marster gib mammy ten bushels er corn en some hog heads en spareribs en tole her ter bring de chillun bak er gin ’fore long kase he gwine ter gib all de chillun some shoes at de tanyard, but us neber did go bak ter git dem shoes kase we wuz immigrated soon atter den.