After the War

“After the war my father fanned—­made share crops.  I remember once how some one took his horse and left an old tired horse in the stable.  She looked like a nag.  When she got rested up she was better than the one that was took.

“His first farm was down here in Dallas County.  He made a share crop with his former master, Pattillo.  He never had no trouble with him.

Ku Klux

“I heard a good deal of talk about the Ku Klux Klan, but I don’t know anything much about it.  They never bothered my father and mother.  My father was given the name of being an obedient servant—­among the best help they had.

“My father farmed all his life.  He died at the age of seventy-two in Tulip, near the year 1885, just before Cleveland’s inauguration.  He died of typhoid pneumonia.  My mother was ninety-six years old when she died in 1909.

Little Rock

“I came to Little Rock in 1894.  I came up here to teach in Fourche Dam.  Then I moved here.  I taught my first school in this county at Cato.  I quit teaching because my salary was so poor and then I went into the butcher’s business, and in the wood business.  I farmed all the while.

“I taught school for twenty-one years.  I always was a successful teacher.  I did my best.  If you contract to do a job for ten dollars, do as much as though you were getting a hundred.  That will always help you to get a better job.

“I have farmed all my life in connection with my teaching.  I went into other businesses like I said a moment ago.  I was a caretaker at the Haven of Rest Cemetery for sometime.

“I was postmaster from 1904 to 1911 at Sweet Home.  At one time I was employed on the United States Census.

“I get a little blind pension now.  I have no other means of support.

Loss of Eyes

“The doctor says I lost my eyesight on account of cataracts.  I had an operation and when I came home, I got to stirring around and it caused me to have a hemorrhage of the eye.  You see I couldn’t stay at the hospital because it was costing me $3 a day and I didn’t have it.  They had to take one eye clean out.  Nothing can be done for them, but somehow I feel that the lord’s going to let me see again.  That’s the way I feel about it.

“I have lived here in this world this long and never had a fight in my life.  I have never been mistreated by a white man in my life.  I always knew my place.  Some fellows get mistreated because they get out of their place.

“I was told I couldn’t stay in Benton because that was a white man’s town.  I went there and they treated me white.  I tried to stay with a colored family way out.  They were scared to take me.  I had gone there to attend to some business.  Then I went to the sheriff and he told me that if they were scared to have me stay at their home, I could stay at the hotel and put my horse in the livery stable.  I stayed out in the wagon yard.  But I was invited into the hotel.  They took care of my horse and fed it and they brought me my meals.  The next morning, they cleaned and curried and hitched my horse for me.