“I soon got so my learning was a help to him in his work.  Whenever any figuring was to be done, I had to do it if it was done right.  He never had a chance to get any schooling and he couldn’t figure well.  So they used to beat him out of plenty when he would work for them.  One day we had picked cotton for a white man and when the time came to pay off, the man paid father, but I noticed that he didn’t give him all he should have.  I didn’t say anything while we was standing there but after we got away I said, ‘Papa, he didn’t give you the right money.’

“Papa said, ‘How much should he have given me?’

“I told him, and he said to me, ‘Will you say that to him?’

“I said, ‘Yes, papa.’

“He turned ’round and we went on back to the place and pa said, ’My boy says you didn’t pay me all that was comin’ to me.’

“The white man turned to me at once and said, ’How much was coming to him?’

“I told him.

“He said, ‘What makes you think that?’

“I said, ’We picked so many pounds of cotton at so much per hundred pounds, and that would amount to so many dollars and so many cents.’

“When I said that, he fell over on the ground and like to killed his self laughing.  He counted out the right money to my father and said, ’Henry, you better watch that little skinny-eyed nigger; he knows something.’

Present Support

“I don’t got anything from the government.  I live by what little I make at odd jobs.”

Note:  In this interview this man used correct English most of the time and the interview is given in his own words.  Lapses into dialect will be noticed.

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Ben Parr, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age:  85 next March (1938)

“I was born in Tennessee close to Ripley.  My master was Charles Warpoo and Catherine Warpoo.  They had three boys and two girls.  They owned my mama and me and Gentry was the oldest child.  He died last year.  My mama raised twelve children.  My papa belong to people over on the Mississippi River.  Their name was Parr but I couldn’t tell a thing about them.  When I come to know about them was after freedom.  There was Jim Parr, Dick Parr, Columbus Parr.  We lived on their place.  Both my parents was farm hands, and all twelve children wid them.

“Well, the first I recollect is that we lived on the five acre lot, the big house, and some of the slaves lived in houses around the big yard all fenced with pailings and nice pickett fence in front of Charlie Warpoo’s house.  We played around under the trees all day.  The soldiers come nearly every day and nearly et us out of house and home.  The blue coats seemed the hungriest or greediest pear lack.  They both come.  Master didn’t go to war; his boys was too young to go, so we was all at home.  My papa shunned the war.  He said he didn’t give a pickayune whether he be free or not, it wouldn’t do no good if he be dead nohow.  He didn’t live with us doe (though).  They kept papa pretty well hid out with stock in the Mississippi River bottoms.  He wasn’t scared ceptin’ when he come over to see my mama and us.  When we come to know anything we was free.