“Master Hicks had Uncle Patrick bury his silver and gold in the woods.  It was in a trunk.  The hair and hide was still on the trunk when the War ceased.  He used his money to pay the slaves that worked on his place after freedom.

“I went to school to a white man from January till May and mother paid him one dollar a month tuition.  After I married I went to school three terms.  I married quite young.  Everyone did that far back.

“I married at Aunt Jane’s home.  We got married and had dinner at one or two o’clock.  Very quiet.  Only a few friends and my relatives.  I wore a green wool traveling dress.  It was trimmed in black velvet and black beads.  I married in a hat.  At about seven o’clock we went to ny husband’s home at Perry, Georgia.  He owned a new buggy.  We rode thirty miles.  We had a colored minister to marry us.  He was a painter and a fine provider.  He died.  I had no children.

“I came to Forrest City 1874.  There was three dry-goods and grocery stores and two saloons here—­five stores in all.  I come alone.  Aunt Jane and Uncle Sol had migrated here.  My mother come with me.  There was one railroad through here.  I belong to the Baptist church.

“I married the second time at Muskogee, Oklahoma.  My husband lived out there.  He was Indian-African.  He was a Baptist minister.  We never had any children.  I never had a child.  They tell me now if I had married dark men I would maybe had children.  I married very light men both times.

“I washed and ironed, cooked and kept house.  I sewed for the public, black and white.  I washed and ironed for Mrs. Grahan at Crockettsville twenty-three years and three months.  I inherited a home here.  Owned a home here in Forrest City once.  I live with my cousin here.  He uses that house for his study.  He is a Baptist minister. (The church is in front of their home—­a very nice new brick church—­ed.) I’m blind now or I could still sew, wash and iron some maybe.

“I get eight dollars from the Social Welfare.  I do my own cooking in the kitchen.  I am seventy-seven years old.  I try to live as good as my age.  Every year I try to live a little better, ’A little sweeter as the years go by.’”

Interviewer:  Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed:  Cyrus Bellus
                    1320 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age:  73

[HW:  Made Own Cloth]

“I was born in Mississippi in 1865 in Jefferson County.  It was on the tenth of March.  My father’s name was Cyrus Bellus, the same as mine.  My mother’s name was Matilda Bellus.

“My father’s master was David Hunt.  My father and mother both belonged to him.  They had the same master.  I don’t know the names of my grandfather and mother.  I think they were Jordons.  No, I know my grandmother’s name was Annie Hall, and my grandfather’s name was Stephen Hall.  Those were my mother’s grandparents.  My father’s father was named John Major and his mother was named Dinah Major.  They belonged to the Hunts.  I don’t know why the names was different.  I guess he wasn’t their first master.