“One time the Yankees come and drunk the sweet milk and took all the butter, turkeys and hogs and then broke the powder horn against the maple tree.

“The cook say ‘I’m gwine tell Marse Joe you drink all this milk.’  The Yankees say, ‘Let the damn fool alone—­here we are tryin’ to free her and she ain’t got no sense.’  They said there wouldn’t be any more hard times after the war.

“But I sure have seen some hard times.  I have washed and cooked and done ’bout everything.

“When I get up in the morning I got the limburger (lumbago) in my back so I ain’t able to do much.  Sometimes I have something to eat and sometimes I don’t.”

Mrs. Carol Graham
Mrs. Mildred Thompson
El Dorado District

Fannie Sims. 
Customs.

“How ole is ah?  Ise about 78.  Yes’m ah wuz live durin de wah.  Mah ole moster wuz Mistuh Jake Dumas we lived near de Ouachita rivuh bout five miles fum El Dorado landin.  Ah membush dat we washed at de spring way, way fum de house.  What dat yo say?  Does ah know Ca’line.  Ca’line, lawsy, me yes.  Ca’line Washington we use tuh call huh, she wuz one uv Mr. Dumas niggers.  We washed fuh de soldiers.  Had tuh carry day clo’es tuh dem aftuh dark.  Me an Ca’line had tuh carry dem.  We had tuh hide de horse tuh keep de soldiers fum gittin him.  When we would take de horse tuh de plum orchard we would stay dah all day to dark wid “Blackie”.  Dat wuz de horse’s name.  Mah job mostly wuz tuh watch de chillun an feed mah mistress chickens.

“Ah kin recollect when dey took us an started tuh Texas an got as fur as El Dorado and found out dat us niggers wuz free.  We went back an grandma’s mistress’s son took us home wid him fuh stretches and stretches.  We lived on de ole Camden road.

“In mah days ah’ve done plenty uv work but ah don’ do nothing now but piece quilts.  Dat’s whut ah’ve been doing fuh mah white fokes since ah been heah.  Ah jes finished piecing and quiltin two uv em.  De Glove[TR:?] and de Begger.  Mah husban’ been dead 31 years dis pas’ August.  No, ah counts is by dose twins ah raised.  One uv em lives in dis heah place right heah.  Ah aint much count now.  Sometime mah laig gets so big ah jes had tuh sloop mah foot erlong.”

Interviewer:  Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed:  Jerry Sims (Indian and Negro)
                    Brinkley, Arkansas
Age:  Born 1859

“I was born in 1859 close to Natchez, Mississippi.  Chief Sims was my grandpa.  He was Indian, full blood.  His wife was a Choctaw Indian.  Grandpa was a small red Indian.  They kept my pa hid out with stock nearly all time of the Civil War.  Both my mas’ parents was nearly all Indian too but they was mixed.  I’m more Indian than anything else.  I heard pa talk about staying in the cane brakes.  Mighty few cane brakes to be found now.  I come with my grandpa and grandma to Arkansas when I was five years old.

“My ma belong to Quill and Sely Whitaker.  I et and slept with Hattie and Bud and Rob Whitaker.  Quill Whitaker was a Union surgeon in the Civil War.