“I can ricollect way back there.

“I don’t know whether the white folks was good or not, we hardly ever saw ’em.  Had a old woman that cooked for the chillun at the quarters.  I ricollect they had a big old kittle and she’d cook that full of somethin’.  I know the old lady give us plenty of somethin’ to eat.

“All the white folks didn’t treat their hands mean.  Some of ’em was a fool ’bout them little niggers.

“Old woman what cooked for the chillun was old Aunt Henie and she walked half bent with a stick.

“I went to school some after freedom.  Learned how to spell and read but not much writin’.

“I can’t tell you ’bout no whippin’s ’cause if they whipped the folks they didn’t do it at the quarters where the chillun was.

“I been farmin’ all my life till I come to Arkansas in 1916.  Since then I first cooked and washed.  I ain’t worked out in three years now.

“I gets a little pension from the Welfare and I make out on that.  My granddaughter lives with me.  She will finish high school in May and then she can take care of herself.

“I used to own this place but it was sold for taxes.  Don’t make any difference if you is as old as Methuselah you got to pay them taxes.  Old Caeser started ’em and we’ve had to pay ’em ever since.

“Younger generation ain’t mannerly now like they was when I was young.  Chillun used to be obedient but they got to have their way now.  Old folks done put the chillun where they is now and they ought to take care of ’em.

“I don’t know where the world gwine come to in the next five years.  I reckon they’ll all be dead way they’re gwine now.  Storms takin’ ’em away here and war in them other countries.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  J. Roberts, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age:  45 or 50
Occupation:  Methodist preacher

“My father was a Federal soldier in the Civil War.  He was from Winston, Virginia.  He went to war and soon after the end he came to Holly Grove.  He was in Company “K”.  He signed up six or seven papers for men in his company he knew and they all got their pensions.  Oh yes!  He knew them.  He was an awful exact honest man.  He was a very young man when he went into the war and never married till he come to Arkansas.  He married a slave woman.  She was a field woman.  They farmed.  Father sat by the hour and told how he endured the war.  He never expected to come out alive after a few months in the war.

“John Roberts Collins was his owner in slavery.  I never heard why he cut off the Collins.  I call my own self J. Roberts.”

“The present times are hard times.  Sin hath caused it all.  Machinery has taken so much of the work.”

“The present generation are fair folks but wild.  Yes, the young folks today are wilder than my set was.  I can’t tell you how but I see it every way I go.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  George Robertson? or George Robinson? 
                    Brinkley, Arkansas
Age:  81