“The young generation is weaker in body than us old folks has been.  They ain’t been raised to hard work and they don’t hold out.

“That is salve I’m making.  What do it smell like?  It smell like chitlings.  In that sack is the inside of the chitlings (hog manure).  I boil it down and strain it, then boll it down, put camphor gum and fresh lard in it, boil it down low and pour it up.  It is a green salve.  It is fine for piles, rub your back for lumbago, and swab out your throat for sore throat.  It is a good salve.  I had a sore throat and a black woman told me how to make it.  It cures the sore throat right now.

“I live on what I am able to work and make.  I never have got no help from the government.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Sam Word, 1122 Missouri Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  79

“I’m a sure enough Arkansas man, born in Arkansas County near De Witt.  Born February 14, 1859, and belonged to Bill Word.  I know Marmaduke come down through Arkansas County and pressed Bill Word’s son Tom into the service.

“I ’member one song they used to sing called the ‘Bonnie Blue Flag.’

  ’Jeff Davis is our President
   And Lincoln is a fool;
   Jeff Davis rides a fine white horse
   While Lincoln rides a mule.’

  ’Hurrah!  Hurrah! for Southern rights,
   Hurrah! 
   Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag
   That bears a Single Star!’”

(The above verse was sung to the tune of “The Bonnie Blue Flag.”  From the Library of Southern Literature I find the following notation about the original song and its author, Harry McCarthy:  “Like Dixie, this famous song originated in the theater and first became popular in New Orleans.  The tune was borrowed from ‘The Irish Jaunting Car’, a popular Hibernian air.  Harry McCarthy was an Irishman who enlisted in the Confederate army from Arkansas.  The song was written in 1861.  It was published by A.E.  Blackmar who declared General Ben Butler ’made it very profitable by fining every man, woman, or child who sang, whistled or played it on any instrument twenty-five dollars.’  Blackmar was arrested, his music destroyed, and a fine of five hundred dollars imposed upon him.”)

“I stayed in Arkansas County till 1866.  I was about seven years old and we moved here to Jefferson County.  Then my mother married again and we went to Conway County and lived a few years, and then I come back to Jefferson County, so I’ve lived in Jefferson County sixty-eight years.

“In Conway County when I was a small boy livin’ on the Milton Powell place, I ’member they sent me out in the field to get some peaches about a half mile from the slave quarters.  It was about three o’clock, late summer, and I saw something in the tree—­a black lookin’ concern.  Seem like it got bigger the closer I got, and then just disappeared all of a sudden and I didn’t see it go.  I know I went back without any peaches.