“Before the surrender I didn’t do nothing in the line of work ’cept ’tend to my mother’s children.  I didn’t do no work at all ’cept that.  My white folks were good to me.  All my folks ’cept me are gone.  My grandmas and uncles and things all settin’ up yonder.  All my children what is dead, they’re up yonder.  I ain’t got but three living, and they’re on their way.  Minnie and Mamie and Annie, that is all I got.  Mamie’s the youngest and she’s got grandchildren.

How Freedom Came

“The way we learned that freedom had come, my uncle come to the fence and told my mama we were free and I went with her.  Sure he’d been to the War.  He come back with his budget.  Don’t you know what a budget is?  You ain’t never been to war, have you?  Well, you oughter know what a budget is.  That’s a knapsack.  It had a pocket on each side and a water can on each shoulder.  He come home with his budget on his back, and he come to the fence and told mama we was free and I heered him.

Right After Freedom

“Right after freedom my mama and them stayed with the same people they had been with.  The rest of the people scattered wherever they wanted to But my uncle come there and got mama.  They moved back to the Taylors then where my grandma was.  Wouldn’t care if I had some of that good old spring water now where my grandma lived!

“None of my people were ever bothered by the pateroles or the Ku Klux.

“We come to Arkansas because we had kinfolks down here.  Just picked up and come on.  I been here a long time.  I don’t know how long, I don’t keep up with nothing like that.  When my husband was living I just followed him.  He said that this was a good place and we could make a good living.  So I just come on.  When he died, those gravediggers dug his grave deep enough to put another man on top of him.  But that don’t hurt him none.  He’s settin’ in the kingdom.  He was a deacon in the church and his word went.  The whole plantation would listen to him and do what he said.  Everybody respected him because he was right.  I was just married once and no man can take his place.  He was the first one and the best one and the last one.  He was heaven bound and he went on there.  I don’t know just how long I was married.  It is in the Bible.  It is in there in big letters.  I can’t get that right now.  It’s so big and heavy.  But it’s in there.  I think we left it in Detroit when I was there, and it ain’t come back here yet.  But I know we lived together a long time.

“I remember the old slave-time songs but I can’t think of them just now.  ‘Come to Jesus’ is one of them.  ’Where shall I be when the first trumpet sounds?’, that’s another one.  Another one is:  ’If I could, I surely would; Set on the rock where Moses stood—­first verse or stanza.  All of my sins been taken away, taken away—­chorus.  Mary wept and Martha moaned, Mary’s gone to a world unknown—­second verse or stanza.  All of my sins are taken away, taken away—­chorus.”