"Couldn't go nowhere without a pass. Had a whippin' block right at the horse trough. Yes ma'm, they'd eat you up. I mean they'd whip you, but they give you plenty of somethin' to eat.
"My mother was the weaver and they had a tanyard on the place.
"In slavery days couldn't go see none of your neighbors without a pass. People had meetin' right at the house. Dey'd have prayer and singin'. I went to em. I could sing—Lord yes. I used to know a lot of old songs—'Am I A Soldier of the Cross?'.
"Lord yes, ma'm, don't talk! When the soldiers come out where we was I could hear the guns. Had a battle right in town. Rebels just as scared of the Yankees as if twas a bear. I seed one or two of em come to town and scare the whole business.
"I never knowed but one man run off and jined the Yankees. Carried his master's finest ridin' hoss and a mule. He always had a fine hoss and Yankees come and took it. When the Yankees come out the last time, my owners cleaned out the smoke house and buried the meat.
"I helped gin cotton when I wasn't big enough to stand up to the breast. Stood upon a bench and had a lantern hung up so I could see fore daylight. Yes ma'm, great big gin house. Yes ma'm, I sho has worked—all kinds and plowin'.
"Now my old boss called me Tony—that's what he called me.
"When peace come, we had done gathered our crop and we left there a week later. You know people usually hunts their kinfolks and we went to Hernando. Come to Arkansas in '77. Got offin de boat right der at de cotehouse. Pine Bluff wasn't nothin' when I come here.
"I used to vote. I aimed to vote the Republican ticket—I don't know.
"Oh yes ma'm, I seed the Ku Klux, yes ma'm. They're bad, too. Lord I seed a many of them. They come to my house. I went to the door and that's as far as I went. That was in Hernando. I went back to my old home in Hernando bout three months ago. Went where I was bred and born but I didn't know the place it was tore up so.