“My daddy was his old mistress’ pet.  He used to carry her to school all the time and I guess that’s where he got his learnin’.

“After I was married I worked in the field.  Rolled logs, cut brush, chopped and picked cotton.

“I member when they had that ‘Bachelor’ (Brooks-Baxter) War up here at Little Rock.

“After my chillun died, I never went to the field no more.  I just stayed round mongst the white folks nussin’.  All the chillun I nussed is married and grown now.

“All this younger generation—­white and colored—­I don’t know what’s gwine come of em.  The poet says: 

  ’Each gwine a different way
  And all the downward road.’”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Dinah Perry
                    1002 Indiana, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  78
[TR:  Appears to be same as last informant despite different address.]

“I’se bawn in Alabama and brought here to Arkansas a baby.  I couldn’t tell what year I was bawn ’cause I was a baby.  A chile can’t tell what year he was bawn ’less they tells him and they sure didn’t tell me.

“When I’d wake up in the mawnin’ my mother would be gone to the field.

“Some things I can remember good but you know old folks didn’t ’low chillun to stand around when they was talkin’ in dem days.  They had to go play.  They had to be mighty particular or they’d get a whippin’.

“Chillun was better in them days ’cause the old folks was strict on ’em.  Chillun is raisin’ theirselves today.

“I ’member one song they used to sing

  ’We’ll land over shore
  We’ll land over shore;
  And we’ll live forever more.’

“They called it a hymn.  They’d sing it in church, then they’d all get to shoutin’.

“Superstitions?  Well, I seen a engineer goin’ to work the other day and a black cat run in front of him, and he went back ’cause he said he would have a wreck with his train if he didn’t.  So you see, the white folks believes in things like that too.

“I never was any hand to play any games ’cept ‘Chick.  Chick.’  You’d ketch ’hold a hands and ring up.  Had one outside was the hawk and some inside was the hen and chickens.  The old mother hen would say

  ’Chick-a-ma, chick-a-ma, craney crow,
  Went to the well to wash my toe;
  When I come back my chicken was gone,
  What time is it, old witch?’

One chicken was s’posed to get out and then the hawk would try to ketch him.

“We was more ’ligious than the chillun nowadays.  We used to play preachin’ and baptisin’.  We’d put ’em down in the water and souse ’em and we’d shout just like the old folk.  Yes ma’am.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Alfred Peters, 1518 Bell Street,
                    Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  78

“I was born seven miles from Camden.

“I was ’leven months old when they carried us to Texas.  First thing I remember I was in Texas.