“Used to hear my mudder talk about de Ku Klux Klan puttin’ cotton between her toes and whuppin’ her, and dat’s de way dey done us young’uns when we didn’t behave.  And we used to have manners den, both whites and blacks.  I wish times was like dem days, but dey’s gone.

“Yes, we used to have our tasks to do befo’ goin’ to bed.  We’d have a little basket of cotton and had to pick de seeds all out of dat cotton befo’ we went to bed.  And we could all ca’d and spin—­yes suh—­make dat old spinnin’ wheel go Z-z-z-z as you walked back and fo’f a-drawin’ out de spool of ya’n.  And you could weave cloth and make all yo’ own britches, too. (Here his wife interpolated a homely illustration of the movement of “de shettle” in the loom weaving—­ed.)

“Yes, I mind my mudder tellin’ many a time about dem Klan-men, and how dey whupped white women to make em give up de money dey had hid, and how dey used to burn dey feet.  Yes suh, ain’t no times like dem old days, and I wish we had times like em now.  Yes suh, I’ll sure come to see you in town one of dese days.  Good mornin’.”

NOTE:  Bob Potter is a most interesting Negro character—­one of the most genial personalities of the Old South that the interviewer has met anywhere.  His humor is infectious, his voice boisterous, but delightful, and his uproarious laugh just such as one delights to listen to.  And his narrations seem to ring with veracity.

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Louise Prayer
                    3401 Short West Third, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  80

“I can member seein’ the Yankees.  My mother died when I was a baby and my grandmother raised me.  I’se goin’ on eighty.

“When the Yankees come we piled boxes and trunks in front of the doors and windows.  She’d say, ’You chillun get in the house; the Yankees are comin’.’  I didn’t know what ’twas about—­I sure didn’t.

“I’m honest in mind.  You know the Yankees used to come in and whip the folks.  I know they come in and whipped my grandma and when they come in we chillun went under the bed.  Didn’t know no better.  Why did they whip her?  Oh my God, I don’t know bout dat.  You know when we chillun saw em ridin’ in a hurry we went in the house and under the bed.  I specks they’d a killed me if they come up to me cause they’d a scared me to death.

“We lived on the Williams’ place.  All belonged to the same people.  They give us plenty to eat such as ’twas.  But in them days they fed the chillun mostly on bread and syrup.  Sometimes we had greens and dumplin’s.  Jus’ scald some meal and roll up in a ball and drop in with the greens.  Just a very few chickens we had.  I don’t love chicken though.  If I can jus’ get the liver I’m through with the chicken.

“When I got big enough my grandmother had me in the field.  I went to school a little bit but I didn’t learn nothin’.  Didn’t go long enough.  That I didn’t cause the old man had us in the field.