"Ephriam Hester come to a hard fate. A crowd of cavalrymen from Vicksburg rode up. He was on his porch. He went in the house to his wife. One of the soldiers retched in his pocket and got something and throwed it up on top of the house. The house burned up and him and her burned up in it. The house was surrounded. That took place three miles this side of Natchez, Mississippi. They took all his fine stock, all the corn. They hauled it off. They took all the wagons. They sot all they didn't take on fire and let it burn up. They burnt the gin and some cotton. They burnt the loom house, the wheat house; they robbed the smokehouse and burned it. We never got nothing. We come purt nigh starving after then. After that round we had no use fer the Yankees. I was learned young two wrongs don't make a right. That was wrong. They done more wrong than that. I heard about it. We stayed till after freedom. It was about a year. It was hard times. Seemed longer. We went to another place after freedom. We never got a chance to get nothing. Nothing to get there.
"In slavery times they had clog dances from one farm to another. Paddyrollers run 'em in, give them whoopings. They had big nigger hounds. They was no more of them after the War. The Ku Klux got to having trouble. They would put vines across the narrow roads. The horses run in and fell flat. The Ku Klux had to quit on that account.
"We didn't know exactly when freedom was. I went to school at Shaffridge, two miles from Clarks store. That was what is Clarksdale, Mississippi now. He had a store, only store in town. Old man Clark run it. He was old bachelor and a all right fellow, I reckon. I thought so. I went to colored teachers five or six months. I learned in the Blue Back books. I stopped at about 'Baker (?)'.
"I farmed all my life. I got my wife and married her in 1883. We got a colored preacher, Parson Ward. I had four children. They all dead but one. I got two lots and a house gone back to the state. I come to see 'bout 'em today. I going to redeem 'em if I can. I made the money to buy it at the round house. I worked there ten or twelve years. I got two dollars ninety-eight cents a day. I hates to loose it. I have a hard time now to live, Miss.
"I votes Republican mostly. I have voted on both sides. I tries to live like this. When in Rome, do as Romans. I want to be peaceable wid everybody.
"The present times is hard. I can't get a bit of work. I tries. Work is hard fer some young folks to get yet.
"I love to be around young folks. Fer as I know they do all right. The world looks nicer 'an it used to look. All I see wrong, times is hard."