“You did?”

“I did.”

“Did a colored man marry you?”

“Colored preacher—­Jim Woods.”

“Did he say the ceremony?”

“He read it out of a little book.”

“Did you have a nice supper?”

“Course I did!  White folks helped fix my weddin’ supper.  Had turkey, chickens, baked shoat, pies and cake—­a table piled up full.  Mama helped cook it.  It was all cooked on fireplace.

“How were you dressed?”

“Dressed like folks dressed to marry.”

“How was that?”

“I wore three or four starched underskirts trimmed in ruffles and a white dress over em.  I wore a long lacy vail of net.”

“Did you go away?”

“I lived close to my ma and always lived close bout her.  I was called a first class lady then.”

“You were.”

“My parents name Tempy Harris and Albert Harris.  She was a cook.  He was a farmer.  They had five children.  The reason I come to Arkansas was cause brother Albert and Caroline come here and kept writin’ for us to come.  My folks belong to the Harrises.  I don’t know nothin’ bout em—­been too long—­and I never fooled round their houses.  Some my folks belong to the Joneses.  They kinfolks of the Harrises.

“No, I never saw no one sold nor hung neither.

“Remember grandpa.  His daddy was a white man.  His wife was a black woman.  Mama was a brown woman like I is.

“I ain’t had narry child.  My mother died here in this house.  Way me an my husband paid for the house, he farmed for Jim Black and Mr. Gunn.  I cooked for Jim Woodfin.  Then I run a roomin’ house till four years ago.  Four years ago I went to South Carolina to see my auntie.  Her name Julia.  They all had more ’n I had.  She’d dead now.  All of em dead bout it.  She was a light woman—­Julia.  Her pa was a white man; her ma a light woman.  Julia considered wealthy.

“I don’t know nothin’ bout freedom.  I seen the soldiers.  I seen both kinds.  The white folks was good to us.  We stayed on.  Then we went to Albany, Georgia.  We lived there a long time—­lived in Florida a long time, then come here.

“The Joneses and Harrises had two or three families all I know.  They didn’t have no big sight of land.  They was good to us.  I picked up chips, put em in the boxes.  Picked em up in my dress, course; I fetched up water.  We had rocked wells and springs, too.  We lived with man named Holman in Georgia.  We farmed.  I used to be called a smart woman, till I done got not able.  My grandpa was a white man; mama’s pa.

“What I been doin’ from 1864-1937?  What ain’t I done!  Farmin’, I told you.  Buildin’ fences was common.  Feedin’ hogs, milkin’ cows, churnin’.  We raised hogs and cows and kept somethin’ to eat at home.  I knit sox.  I spin.  I never weaved.  Folks wore clothes then.  They don’t wear none now.  Pieced quilts.  Could I sew?  Course I did!  Got a machine there now. (pointed to an old one.)