“I married about 1932.  My wife is dead.  We never had any children.

“I haven’t worked any now in five years.  I have been to the hospital in the east end.  I get old age assistance—­eight dollars and commodities.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Bob Benford
                    209 N. Maple Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  79

“Slavery-time folks?  Here’s one of em.  Near as I can get at it, I’se seventy-nine.  I was born in Alabama.  My white folks said I come from Perry County, Alabama, but I come here to this Arkansas country when I was small.

“My old master was Jim Ad Benford.  He was good to us.  I’m goin’ to tell you we was better off then than now.  Yes ma’am, they treated us right.  We didn’t have to worry bout payin’ the doctor and had plenty to eat.

“I recollect the shoemaker come and measured my feet and directly he’d bring me old red russet shoes.  I thought they was the prettiest things I ever saw in my life.

“Old mistress would say, ‘Come on here, you little niggers’ and she’d sprinkle sugar on the meat block and we’d just lick sugar.

“I remember the soldiers good, had on blue suits with brass buttons.

“I’se big enough to ride old master’s hoss to water.  He’d say, ’Now, Bob, don’t you run that hoss’ but when I got out of sight, I was bound to run that hoss a little.

“I didn’t have to work, just stayed in the house with my mammy.  She was a seamstress.  I’m tellin’ you the truth now.  I can tell it at night as well as daytime.

“We lived in Union County.  Old master had a lot of hands.  Old mistress’ name was Miss Sallie Benford.  She just as good as she could be.  She’d come out to the quarters to see how we was gettin’ along.  I’d be so glad when Christmas come.  We’d have hog killin’ and I’d get the bladders and blow em up to make noise—­you know.  Yes, lady, we’d have a time.

“I recollect when Marse Jim broke up and went to Texas.  Stayed there bout a year and come back. [HW:  migration?]

“When the war was over I recollect they said we was free but I didn’t know what that meant.  I was always free.

“After freedom mammy stayed there on the place and worked on the shares.  I don’t know nothin’ bout my father.  They said he was a white man.

“I remember I was out in the field with mammy and had a old mule.  I punched him with a stick and he come back with them hoofs and kicked me right in the jaw—­knocked me dead.  Lord, lady, I had to eat mush till I don’t like mush today.  That was old Mose—­he was a saddle mule.

“Me?  I ain’t been to school a day in my life.  If I had a chance to go I didn’t know it.  I had to help mammy work.  I recollect one time when she was sick I got into a fight and she cried and said, ’That’s the way you does my child’ and I know she died next week.

“After that I worked here and there.  I remember the first run I worked for was Kinch McKinney of El Dorado.