to my old woman dat somepin is sure gwine to take place, an’ dat some pusson gwine die soon cause dat cow, she givin’ de sign just right.  Dere wasn’t nobody ‘round sick a tall an’ Aunt Dinah, she plumb well at de time.  About er week from then Aunt Dinah, she took down an’ start to sinkin’ right off an’ in less than a week she died.  I knowed some pusson gwine die all right, yet an’ still I didn’t know who it was to be.  I tell you, Boss, I is gittin’ uneasy an’ troubled de last day or two, ’cause I is done heered another cow a lowin’ an’ a lowin’ in de middle of de night.  She keeps a walkin’ back an’ forth past my house out there in de road.  I is really troubled ‘cause me an’ de old woman both is gittin’ old.  We is both way up in years an’ whilst both of us is in real good health, Aunt Dinah was too.  Dat cow a lowin’ like she do is a bad sign dat I done noticed mighty nigh allus comes true.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed:  Jordan Davis
                    306 Cypress Street, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age:  86

“I was a boy in the house when the war started and I heard the mistress say the abolitionists was about to take the South.  Yes ma’m.  That was in Natchez, Mississippi.  I was about nine or ten.

“Mistress’ name was Eliza A. Hart and master’s name was Dave A. Hart.

“I guess they was good to me.  I lived right there in the house with then.  Mistress used to send me to Sunday School and she’d say ’Now, Jordan, you come right on back to the house, don’t you go playin’ with them nigger chillun on the streets.’

“My daddy belonged to a man named Davis way down the river in the country and after the war he came and got me.  Sure did.  Carried me to Davis Bend.  I was a good-sized boy about twelve or fifteen.  He took me to Mrs. Leas Hamer and you know I was a good-sized boy when she put me in the kitchen and taught me how to cook.  Yes’m, I sure can cook.  She kept me right in the house with her children.  I did her cooking and cleaned up the house.  I never got any money for it, or if I did I done forgot all about it.  She kept me in clothes, she sure did.  I didn’t need any money.  I stayed five or six years with her, sure did.  I thought a lot of her and her children—­she was so kind to me.

“Yes ma’m, I went to school one or two years in Mississippi.

“When I come here to Arkansas on the steamboat and got off right here in Pine Bluff, there was a white man standin’ there named Burks.  He kept lookin’ at me and directly he said ‘Can you cook?’ I was married then and had all my household goods with me, so he got a dray and carried me out to his house.  His wife kept a first-class boarding house.  Just first-class white folks stayed there.  After the madam found out I had a good idea ‘bout cookin’ she put me in the dining room and turned things over to me.

“Miss, it’s been so long, I don’t study ‘bout that votin’ business.  I have never bothered ‘bout no Republican or votin’ business—­I never cared about it.  I know one thing, the white people are the only ones ever did me any good.