"When a man wanted a woman he went and axed the master for her and took her on. That is about all there was to it. No use to want one of the women on Jim Johnson's, Debrose, Tillery farms. They kept them on their own and didn't want visitors. They was big farms. Kershy had a big farm.
"The Yankees never went to my master's house a time. The black folks knowd the Yankees was after freedom. They had a song no niggers ever made up, 'I wanter be free.'
"My master was too old to go to war but Bill went. I think it was better times in slavery than now but I'm not in favor of bringing it back on account of the cruelty and dividing up families. My master was good to us. He was proud of us. We fared fine. He had a five or six horse farm. His land wasn't strong but we worked and had plenty. Mother cooked for white and colored. We had what they et 'cepting when company come. When they left we got scraps. Then when Christmas come we had cakes and pies stacked up setting about for us to cut. They cut down through a whole stack of pies. Cut them in halves and pass them among us. We got hunks of cake a piece. We had plain eating er plenty all the time. You see I'm a big man. I wasn't starved out till I was about grown, after the War was over. Times really was hard. Hard, hard times come on us all.
"Mama got one whooping in her life. I seen that. Jason Williams whipped only two grown folks in my life, mama and my brother. Mama sassed her mistress or that what they called it then. Since then I've heard worse jawing not called sassing, call it arguing now. Sassing was a bad trait in them days. Brother was whooped in the field. He was seven years older than me. I didn't see none of that. They talked a right smart about it.
"The Williams was good to us all. Master's wife heired two women and a girl. Mama cooked, ironed, and worked in the field in time of a push (when necessary).
"I was hauling for the Rebel soldiers one rainy evening. It was dark and lightning every now and then. General Ransom was at the hotel porch when Sherman turned the bend one mile to come in the town. It was about four o'clock in the evening I judge. General Ransom's company was washing at Boom's Mill three miles. About one thousand men was out there cooking and in washing, resting. General Ransom went hollering, 'Yankees!' Went to his men. They got away I reckon. Sherman killed sixty men in that town I know. General Ransom went on his horse hollering, 'Yankees coming!' He went to his home eight miles from there. They went on through rough as could be.
"I hauled when it was so dark the team had to take me in home at night. My circuit was ten miles a day.
"My young master Bill Williams come in April soon as he got home and told us we was free but didn't have to leave. We stayed on and worked. He said he had nothing but the land and we had nothing. At the end of the year he paid off in corn and a little money. Us boys left then and mother followed us about. We ain't done no better since then. We didn't go far off.
"Forty-seven years ago I went to Weldon, North Carolina in a wagon, took the train to Gettysburg and from there come to Biscoe, Arkansas. I been about here ever since. Mr. Biscoe paid our way. We worked three years to pay him back. I cleared good money since I cone out here. I had cattle I owned and three head of horses all my own. Age crept up on me. I can't work to do much good now. I gets six dollars—Welfare money.
"Times is a puzzle to me. I don't know what to think. Things is got all wrong some way but I don't know whether it will get straightened out or not. Folks is making the times. It's the folks cause of all this good or bad. People not as good as they was forty years ago. They getting greedy."