"I lives wid my daughter. I gets commodities from the Welfare some. The young folks drinks a heap now. It look lack a waste of money to me."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person Interviewed: Tony Piggy
Brinkley, Ark.
Age: 75
"I was born near Selma, Alabama, but I was raised in Mississippi. My grandpa was sold from South Carolina to Moster Alexander Piggy. He didn't talk plain but my papa didn't nother. Moster Piggy bought a gang of black folks in South Carolina and brought em into the state of Alabama. My papa was mighty near full-blood African, I'll tell you. Now ma was mixed.
"I'm most too young to recollect the war. Right after the war we had small pox. My uncle died and there was seven children had em at one time. The bushwhackers come in and kicked us around—kicked my uncle around. We lived at Union Town, Alabama then.
"Aunt Connie used to whip us. Mama had no time; she was a chambermaid (housewoman). The only thing I recollect bout slavery time to tell is Old Mistress pour out a bushell of penders (peanuts) on the grass to see us pick em up and set out eating em. When they went to town they would bring back things like cheese good to eat. We got some of what they had most generally. She wasn't so good; she whoop me with a cow whip. She'd make pull candy for us too. I got a right smart of raisin' in a way but I growed up to be a wild young man. I been converted since then.
"Well, one day pa come to our house and told mama, 'We free, don't have to go to the house no more, git ready, we all goin' to Mississippi. Moster Piggy goiner go. He goner rent us twenty acres and we goner take two cows and a mule.' We was all happy to be free and goin' off somewhere. Moster Piggy bought land in Mississippi and put families renters on it. Moster Piggy was rough on the grown folks but good to the children. The work didn't let up. We railly had more clearin' and fences to make. His place in Alabama was pore and that was new ground.
"There was all toll nine children in my family. Ma was named Matty Piggy. Papa was named Ezra Piggy. Moster Alexander Piggy's wife named Harriett. I knowed Ed, Charley, Bowls, Ells, and Liza. That's all I ever knowd.
"I have done so many things. I run on a steamboat from Cairo to New Orleans—Kate Adams and May F. Carter. They called me a Rouster—that means a working man. I run on a boat from Newport to Memphis. Then I farmed, done track work on the railroad, and farmed some more.