“I been working for Mrs. Eisele pretty near twenty five years.  Saw her children grow up and the grand children.  Lancing, he’s my heart.  Once when Mr. and Mrs. Eisele went to see Mrs. Brown, Lancing’s mother, they took me with them.  All the way to Watertown, Wisconsin.  There wasn’t any more niggas in the town and all the children thought I was somthing to look at.  They’d come to see me and they’d bring their friends with ’em.  Once while we was there, a circus come to town.  The children wanted me to see it.  Told me there was a negro boy in it.  Guess they thought it would be a treat to me to see another niggah.  I told ’em, ’Law, don’t you think I see lots, lots more than I wants, everyday when I is at home?’

“It used to scare me.  The folks would go off to a party or a show and leave me alone with the baby.  No, Miss Mary, I wasn’t scared for myself.  I thought somebody might come in and kidnap that baby.  No matter how late they was I’d sit on the top step of the stairs leading upstairs—­just outside the door where Lansing was asleep.  No matter what time they come home they’d find me there.  ’Why don’t you go on in your bedroom and lie down?’ they’d ask me.  ‘No,’ I’d tell ’em, ’somebody might come in, and they would have to get that baby over my dead body.’

“Jonnie, that’s my daughter” (Mrs. D.G.  Murphy, 338 Walnut Street, a large stucco house with well cared for lawn) “she wants me to quit work.  I told her, ’You put that over on Mrs. Murphy—­you made her quit work and took care of her.  What happened to her?  She died!  You’re not going to make me old.’

“Twice she’s got me to quit work.  Once, she told me it was against the law.  Told me there was a law old folks couldn’t work.  I believed her and I quit.  Then I come on down and I asked Mr. Eisele” (an important business executive and prominent in civic affairs, [HW:  aged 83]) “He rared back and he said, ‘I’d like to see anybody stop me from working.’  So I come on back.

“Another time, it was when the old age pensions come in.  They tried to stop me again.  Told me I had to take it.  I asked Mr. Eisele if I could work just the same.  ‘No,’ he says ’if you take it, you’ll have to quit work.’  So I stamped my foot and I says, ‘I won’t take nobody’s pension.’

“The other day Jonnie called up here and she started to crying.  Lots of folks write her notes and say she’s bad to let me work.  Somebody told her that they had seen me going by to work at 4 o’clock in the morning.  It wasn’t no such.  I asked a man when I was on the way and it was 25 minutes until 5.  Besides, my clock had stopped and I couldn’t tell what time it was.  Yes, Miss Mary, I does get here sort of early, but then I like it.  I just sit in the kitchen until the folks get up.

“You see that picture over there, it’s Mr. Eisele when he was 17.  I’d know that smiling face anywhere.  He’s always good to me.  When they go away to Florida I can go to the store and get money whenever I need it.  But it’s always good to see them come back.  Miss Maud says I’m sure to go to Heaven, I’m such a good worker.  No, Miss Mary, I’m not going to quit work.  Not until I get old.”