"Honey, I just don't know 'bout this younger generation. I just don't have no thoughts for 'em, they so wild. I never was a rattlin' kind of a girl. I always was civilized. Old people in them days didn't 'low their children to do things. I know when mama called us, we'd better go. They is a heap wusser now. So many of 'em gettin' into trouble."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Reuben Jones
Ezell Quarters, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 85
"Well, I'm one of em. I can tell you bout it from now till sundown.
"I was born at Senatobia, Mississippi, this side of Jackson. Born in '52 on April the 16th. That's when I was born.
"Old man Stephen Williams was my master in time of the war and before the war, too. He was pretty good to me. Give me plenty of something to eat, but he whipped me. Oh, I specked I needed it. Put me in the field when I was five years old. Put a tar cap on my head. I was so young the sun made my hair come out so they put that tar cap on my head.
"I member when they put the folks on blocks as high as that house and sell em to the highest bidder. No ma'm, I wasn't sold cause my mother had three or four chillun and boss man wouldn't sell dem what had chillun cause dem chillun was hands for him.
"They made me hide ever'thing they had from the Yankees. Yes'm, I seen em come out after the fodder and the corn. We hid the meat and the mules and the money. Drove the mules in the cave. Kept em der till the Yankees left. We dug the hole for the meat but old marse dug the hole for the money.
"I used to help put timbers on the bridge to keep the Yankees out but dey come right on through just the same. Took the ox wagon but dey sent it back.