“I don’t know whether they was mean to all the slaves or not.  Seems they were not to my folks.  The old man died sometime before freedom.  The young master went to get a overseer.  He brought a new man to take his own place.  He whooped grandma and auntie and cut grandma’s long hair off with his pocket-knife.

“During that time grandpa slip up on the house top and take some boards off.  Grandma would sit up in her bed and knit by moonlight through the hole.  He had to put the boards back.  She had to work in the field in daytime.

“During the War they were scared nearly to death of the soldiers and would run down in their master’s big orchard and hide in the tall broom sage.  They rode her young master on a rail and killed him.  A drove of soldiers come by and stopped.  They said, ’Young man, can you ride a young horse?’ They gathered him and took him out and brought him in the yard.  He died.  They hurt him and scared him to death.

“Another train come and loaded up all the slaves and somehow when freedom come on, my folks was here at Arkadelphia.  They said they lived in fear of the soldiers all the time.

“Mother said a woman come first and stuck a flag out a upstairs window and the Yankees shot the guns off and some of them made talks on freedom to the Negroes and white folks.  They seen that at Arkadelphia.

“Mama, grandma, and grandpa started on their way back home following soldier camps.  They never got back to their homes.  They never did like the Yankees and grieved about the way they done their young master.  He was like one of my father’s own children.  They seen hard times after freedom.  It was hard to live and they was used to work but they had a good living.  They had to die in Arkansas.  How come I’m here now.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Charlotte Willis, Madison, Arkansas
Age:  63

“Grandpa said he walked every step of the way from old Virginia to Mississippi.  They camped at night, cooked and fed them.  They didn’t eat no more till they camped next night.  They was walked in a peart pace and the guards and traders rode.  They stop every now and then for to be cried off and some more be took on.

“Grandpa said he didn’t wanter be sold but they never ax ’em no diffurence.  Sold ’em and took ’em right along.  They better keep their feelings hid, for them traders was same kind er stock these cattle men is today judging from the way he say it was then.  Grandpa loved Virginia long as he have breath in him.

“We used to sing

  ’Old Virginia nigger say he love hot mush;
   Alabama nigger say, good God, nigger, hush.’

(She sang it very fast and in a fashion Negroes only can do—­ed.) He wore a big straw hat and he’d get up and fan us out the way.

“Grandma was brought from South Carolina by the Willises to Mississippi.  I heard her say her and him was made to jump over the broom.  Called that getting ’em married.  Grandpa said that was the way white folks had of showing off the couples.  Then it would be ’nounced from the big house steps they was man and wife.  Sometimes more than two be ’nounced at the gatherin’.