“I don’t knew nothln’ bout the war.  I wasn’t in it.  I was livin’ but we was in Texas.

“The Ku Klux got after us twice when we was goin’ to Texas.  We had six wagons, a cart, and a carriage.  Old Dr. Brunson rode in the carriage.  He’d go ahead and pilot the way.  We got lost twice.  When we come to Red River it was up and we had to camp there three weeks till the water fell.

“We took some sheep and some cows so we could kill meat on the way.  I member we forded Saline River.  Dr. Brunson carried us there and stayed till he hired us out.

“After the war ceasted he come after us.  Told as we didn’t belong to him no more—­said we was free as he was.  Yankees sent him after us.  All the folks come back—­all but one famlly.

“I had tolerable good owners.  Miss Fanny Brewster good to me.

“Old master got drunk so much.  Come home sometimes muddy as a hog.  All his chillun was girls.  I nursed all the girls but one.

“I was a mighty dancer when I was young—­danced all night long.  Paddyrollers run us home from dancin’ one night.

“I member one song we used to sing: 

  ’Hop light lady
   Cake was all dough—­
   Never mind the weather,
   So the wind don’t blow.’

“How many chillun I have?  Les see—­count em up.  Ida, Willie, Clara—­had six.

“Some of the young folks nowadays pretty rough.  Some of em do right and some don’t.

“Never did go to school.  Coulda went but papa died and had to go to work.

“I thinks over old times sometimes by myself.  Didn’t know what freedom was till we was free and didn’t hardly know then.

“Well, it’s been a long time.  All the Brewsters and the Bransons dead and I’m still here—­blind.  Been blind eight years.”

Waters Brooks 1814 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Ark.  Retired railroad worker, No.  Pac. 75 [TR:  Information moved from bottom of each page.]

[HW:  A Railroad Work History]

I was only three years old when peace (1865) was declared.  I was born in 1862.  Peace was declared in 1865.  I remember seeing plenty of men that they said the white folks never whipped.  I remember seeing plenty of men that they said bought their own freedom.

I remember a woman that they said fought with the overseer for a whole day and stripped him naked as the day he was born.  She was Nancy Ward.  Her owner was named Billie Ward.  He had an overseer named Roper.  Her husband ran away from the white folks and stayed three years.  He was in the Bayou in a boat and the bottom dropped out of it.  He climbed a tree and hollered for someone to tel his master to come and get him if he wanted him.

FATHER

My father’s master was John T. Williams.  He went into the army—­the rebel army—­and taken my father with him.  I don’t know how long my father stayed in the army but I was only 6 months old when he died.  He had some kind of stomach trouble and died a natural death.