INTERVIEWER’S COMMENT

There it was—­the appeal to the slush fund.  I have contributed to lunch, tobacco, and cold drinks, but not before to moving expenses.  I had only six cents which I had reserved for car fare.  But after you have talked with people who are too old to work, too feeble to help themselves in any effective fashion, hemmed up in a single room and unable to pay rent on that, odds and ends of broken and dilapidated furniture, ragged clothes, and not even plenty of water on hand for bathing, barely hanging on to the thread of life without a thrill or a passion, then it is a great thing to have six cents to give away and to be able to walk any distance you want to.

Interviewer:  Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed:  Sallie Crane
                    See first paragraph in interviewer’s comment
                    for residences
Age:  90, or more

[HW:  Whipped from Sunup to Sundown]

“I was born in Hempstead County, between Nashville and Greenville, in Arkansas, on the Military Road.  Never been outside the state in my life.  I was born ninety years ago.  I been here in Pulaski County nearly fifty-seven years.

“I was born in a old double log house chinked and dobbed.  Nary a window and one door.  I had a bedstead made with saw and ax.  Chairs were made with saw, ax, and draw knife.  My brother Orange made the furniture.  We kept the food in boxes.

“My mother’s name was Mandy Bishop, and my father’s name was Jerry Bishop.  I don’t know who my grand folks were.  They was all Virginia folks—­that is all I know.  They come from Virginia, so they told me.  My old master was Harmon Bishop and when they divided the property I fell to Miss Evelyn Bishop.

Age

“The first man that came through here writing us up for the Red Cross, I give him my age as near as I could.  And they kept that.  You know peace was declared in 1865.  They told me I was free.  I got scared and thought that the speculators were going to put me in them big droves and sell me down in Louisiana.  My old mistress said, ’You fool, you are free.  We are going to take you to your mammy.’  I cried because I thought they was carrying me to see my mother before they would send me to be sold in Louisiana.  My old mistress said she would whip me.  But she didn’t.  When we got to my mother’s, I said, ‘How old is I?’ She said, ’You are sixteen.’  She didn’t say months, she didn’t say years, she didn’t say weeks, she didn’t say days; she just said, ‘You are sixteen.’  And my case worker told me that made me ninety years old.

“I was in Hempstead County on Harmon Bishop’s plantation.  It was Miss Polly, Harmon’s wife, that told me I was free, and give me my age.

“I know freedom come before 1865, because my brothers would tell me to come home from Nashville where I would be sent to do nursing by my old mistress and master too to nurse for my young mistress.