This old negro reserves all of the heroic roles for others.  Asked if he had had any experience with the “varmints”, as he termed them he said:  “Yas, suh.  De worst scared I ever got wuz frum a wolf.  Walkin’ down a trail one day, I spied a wolf not more than ten feet away.  Man, I wuz so scared dat I seemed to freeze in my tracks, and couldn’t move.  I tried to holler but all I could do wuz croak.  Den I tried to whistle but de only sound I could make wuz a hiss.  After standing for whut seemed hours, wid his ears sticking straight up, de wolf finally turned around and trotted away.”

The conversation drifted to other topics, and finally to ghosts and spirits.  The old negro said he had never seen a ghost, and didn’t believe in those things.  No sooner had he said this when his wife, who had been listening in on the conversation from the inside of the door exclaimed:  “I does!  Seein’ is believin’ aint it?  Well suh, about two years ago de negro dat lived next door died.  A few weeks after he died I wuz settin’ out on de porch when I see dis negro come out of de house, and walk slowly to de corner of mah yard where he vanished into de air.  A few nights later de same thing happened again.  No suh, dat nigger didn’t go to Heaven and he didn’t go to Hell.  He’s still around heah.  He wuz a wicked negro and wuz scared to go.”

Circumstances of interview
state—­Arkansas
name of worker—­Samuel S. Taylor
address—­Little Rock, Arkansas
date—­December, 1938
subject—­Ex-slave
[TR:  Repetitive information deleted from subsequent pages.]

1.  Name and address of informant—­Laura Shelton, 1518 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas.

2.  Date and time of interview interview—­

3.  Place of interview—­1518 Pulaski Street, Little Rock, Arkansas.

4.  Name and address of person, if any who put you in touch with informant—­

5.  Name and address of person, if any, accompanying you—­

Description of room, house, surroundings, etc.—­

Personal History of Informant

1.  Ancestry—­mother, Susan Barnett; father, Ben Bearden; grandfather, Harvey Barnett.

2.  Place and date of birth—­Arkansas, 1878

3.  Family—­Three children.

4.  Education, with dates—­

5.  Places lived in with dates—­Jerome, Arkansas and Little Rock.  No dates.

6.  Occupations and accomplishments, with dates—­Farmed, wash and iron.

7.  Special skills and interests—­

8.  Community and religious activities—­Belongs to Baptist Church.

9.  Description of informant—­

10.  Other points gained in interview—­

Text of Interview (Unedited)

“My mother used to sit down and talk to us and tell us about slavery.  If she had died when I was young I wouldn’t have known much.  But by her living till I was old, I learned a lot.