“When they gathered sweet potatoes they would dig a pit and line it with straw and put the tatoes in it then cover them with straw and build a coop over it.  This would keep the potatoes from rotting.  The Irish potatoes they would spread out in the sand under the house and the onions they would hand up in the fence to keep them from rotting.

“In old Master Newton’s day they didn’ have ice boxes and they would put the milk and butter and eggs in buckets and let em down in the well to keep em cool.

“Master’s niggers lived in log houses down at de quarters but they was fed out of the big house.  I members they had a long table to eat off and kept hit scoured so nice and clean with sand and ashes and they scoured the floors like that too and it made em so purty and white.  They made their mops cut of shucks.  I always eat in the nursery with young Master Billy.

“They had big old fireplaces in Master’s house and I never seen a stove till after the war.

“I member bein’ down at the quarters one time and one of the women had the sideache and they put poultices on her made out of shucks and hot ashes and that sho’ly did ease the pain.

“The pickaninnies had a time playin’.  Seein’ these peanuts minds me that they used to bust the ends and put them on their ears for ear rings.  Course Master Billy had to try it too, then let out a howl cause they pinched.

“Lan’, but them was good old days when Master Billy was alive.”

Texarkana District
folklore subjects
Name of Interviewer:  Mrs. W.M.  Ball
Subject:  Anecdotes
Story: 

Information given by:  Albert Cummins
Place of Residence:  Laurel St., Texarkana, Ark. 
Occupation:  None (Ex-Slave)
Age:  86
[TR:  Personal information moved from bottom of second page.]

An humble cottage, sheltered by four magnificent oak trees, houses an interesting old negro, Albert Cummins.

Texarkana people, old and young, reverence this character, and obtain from him much valuable information concerning the early life of this country.  This ex-slave was freed when he was fifteen years old, but continued to live in the same family until he was a man.  He says:  “All de training an’ advice I evah had come frum mah mistress.  She wuz a beautiful Christian; if I am anybody, I owe it to her.  I nevah went to school a day in mah life; whut I know I absorbed frum de white folks!  Mah religion is De Golden Rule.  It will take any man to heaben who follows its teachings.

“Mah mahster wuz kilt in de battle fought at Poison Springs, near Camden.  We got separated in de skirmish an’ I nevah did see him again.  Libin’ at that time wuz hard because dere wuz no way to communicate, only to sen’ messages by horseback riders.  It wuz months befo’ I really knew dat mah mahster had been kilt, and where.

“Mr. Autrey bought mah mother when I wuz an infant, and gave us de protection an’ care dat all good slave owners bestowed on their slaves.  I worshipped dis man, dere has nevah been anudder like him.  I sees him often in mah dreams now, an’ he allus appears without food an’ raiment, jus’ as de South wuz left after de war.”