"Wish I was able to get back to the old country and find some of my kin folks. If they ain't none of the old head livin', the young folks is. I got oceans of kin folks in Sampson County.
"My husband was a preacher and he come to the old country from this here Arkansas. He always said he was going to bring me out to this country. He was always tellin' me 'bout Little Rock and Hot Springs. So I was anxious to see this country. So after he died and when they was emigratin' the folks here, I come. I 'member Dr. Blunson counted us out after we got off the boat and he said, 'Well, my crowd looks kinda sickly, but I'm a doctor and I'll save you.' Lawd, they certainly come a heap of 'em. When the train uncoupled at Memphis, some went to Texas, some to Mississippi, and some to Louisiana and Arkansas. People hollerin' 'Goodbye' made you feel right sad.
"Some of 'em stayed in Memphis but I wouldn't stay 'cause dat's the meanest place in the world.
"John M. Gracie had paid out his money for us and I believe in doin' what's right. That was a plantation as sure as you bawn."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Mose King,
Lexa, Arkansas
Age: 81
"I was born in Richmond, Virginia. My master was Ephriam Hester. He had a wife and little boy. We called her mistress. I forgot their names. It's been so long ago.
"My parents named Lizzie Johnson and Andrew Kent. I had seven sisters and there was two of us boys. When mistress died they sold mother and my eldest sister and divided the money. I don't know her master's name in Virginia. Mother was a cook at Ephriam Hester's. Sister died soon as they come 'way from Virginia. I heard her talk like she belong to Nathan Singleterry in Virginia. They put mother and Andrew Kent together. After the surrender she married Johnson. I heard her say my own father was 'cross the river in a free state.
"There was two row of houses on the side of a road a quarter mile long and that is the place all the slaves lived. Ephriam Hester had one hundred acres of wheat. Mother was the head loom. He wasn't cruel but he let the overseers be hard. He said he let the overseers whoop 'em, that what he hired 'em for. They had a whooping stock. It was a table out in the open. They moved it about where they was working. They put the heads and hands and feet in it. I seen a heap of 'em get mighty bad whoopings. I was glad freedom come on fer that one reason. Long as he lived we had plenty to eat, plenty to wear. We had meal, hogs, goat, sheep and cows, molasses, corn hominy, garden stuff. We did have potatoes. I said garden stuff.