“I’ll show you I haven’t been asleep atall.  I worked for the railroad company forty-eight years and I been tryin’ to get that railroad pension but there’s so much Red Cross (tape) to these things they said it’d be three months before they could do anything.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Jim Davis
                    1112 Indiana Street
                    Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  98

“Well, I’ve broke completely down.  I ain’t worth nothing.  Got rheumatism all over me.

“I never seen inside a schoolhouse—­allus looked on the outside.

“The general run of this younger generation ain’t no good.  What I’m speakin’ of is the greatest mass of ’em.  They ain’t healthy either.  Why, when I was comin’ along people was healthy and portly lookin’.  Why, look at me.  I ain’t never had but two spells of sickness and I ain’t never had the headache.  The only thing—­I broke these three fingers.  Hit a mule in the head.  Killed him too.

“Yes’m, that was in slavery times.  Why, they passed a law in Raleigh, North Carolina for me never to hit a man with my fist.  That was when I was sold at one thousand nine hundred dollars.

“Ever’ time they’d make me mad I’d run off in the woods.

“But they sure was good to their darkies.  Plenty to eat and plenty good clothes.  Sam Davis was my owner.  And he wouldn’t have no rough overseer.”

Folklore subjects
Name of interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Subject:  Slavery Time Songs
Subject:  Superstitions
Story:—­Information
[TR:  Additional topic moved from subsequent page.]

This information given by:  Jim Davis
Place of residence:  1112 Indiana Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Occupation:  None
Age:  98
[TR:  Personal information moved from bottom of first page.]

[TR:  Some word pronunciation was marked in this interview.  Letters surrounded by [] represent long vowels.]

“I used to be a banjo picker in Civil War times.  I could pick a church song just as good as I could a reel.

“Some of ’em I used to pick was ‘Amazing Grace’, ‘Old Dan Tucker,’ Used to pick one went like this

  ’Farewell, farewell, sweet Mary;
   I’m ruined forever
   By lovin’ of you;
   Your parents don’t like me,
   That I do know
   I am not worthy to enter your d[o].’

I used to pick

  ’Dark was the night
   Cold was the ground
   On which the Lord might lay.’

I could pick anything.

  ’Amazing grace
   How sweet it sounds
   To save a wretch like me.’

  ’Go preach my Gospel
   Says the Lord,
   Bid this whole earth
   My grace receive;
   Oh trust my word
   Ye shall be saved.’

I used to talk that on my banjo just like I talked it there.”

Superstitions