"I used to vote but I quit since I come to Arkansas. I come in 1902. I paid my own way and wrote back for my family. I paid their way too. I got one little grandaughter, 20 years old. She is off trying to make her way through college. My wife had a stroke and she can't do much no more. I got a piece of a house. It need repairs. I can't hardly pay my taxes. I can't work much. I got two cows and six little pigs. I got eighty acres land. I worked fourteen years for John Gazolla and that is when I made enough to buy my place. I am in debt but I am still working. Seems like one old man can't make much."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Larkin Payne
Brinkley, Ark.
Age: 85
"I was born in North Carolina. I don't recall my moster's name. My parents was Sarah Hadyn and John Payne. They had seven children. None of them was sold. My pa was sold. He had three sons in the Civil War. None of em was killed. One was in the war four years, the others a good portion of two years. They was helpers.
"Grandma bought grandpa's, freedom. My great grandma was an Indian woman. My mother was dark brown. My father was tolerable light. When I was small child they come in and tell bout people being sold. I heard a whole lot about it that way. It was great grandma Hadyn that was the Indian. My folks worked in the field or anywhere as well as I recollect.
"When freedom come on my folks moved to East Tennessee. I don't know whether they got good treatment or not. They was freedom loving folks. The Ku Klux never bothered us at home. I heard a lot of em. They was pretty hot further south. I had two brothers scared pretty bad. They went wid some white men to South Carolina and drove hogs. The white men come back in buggies or on the train—left them to walk back. The Ku Klux got after them. They had a hard time getting home. I heard the Ku Klux was bad down in Alabama. They had settled down fore I went to Alabama. I owned a home in Alabama. I took stock for it. Sold the stock and come to Arkansas. I had seven children. We raised three.
"When my folks was set free they never got nothing. The mountain folks raised corn and made whiskey. They made red corn cob molasses; it was good. They put lye in the whiskey; it would kill you. They raised hogs plenty. My folks raised hogs and corn. They didn't make no whiskey. I seen em make it and sell it too.
"I heard folks say they rather be under the home men overseers than Northern overseers. They was kinder to em it seem like. I was jes beginnin' to go to the field when freedom come on. I helped pile brush to be burned before freedom. I farmed when I was a boy; pulled fodder and bundled it. I shucked corn, slopped pigs, milked, plowed a mule over them rocks, thinned out corn. I worked twenty days in East Tennessee on the section. I cut and haul wood all winter.
"My parents both died in Arkansas. We come here to get to a fine farmin' country. We did like it fine. I'm still here.