it now. They had so much to eat. Blackberry cobbler? Oh Lawd.

"How many brothers and sisters? Me? My dear, I don't know how many I had
but I heard my mother say that all the chillun she did have, that she
had 'leven chillun.

"Our white folks took us to Texas durin' of the War. I think my old
master said we stayed there three years. My mother died there with a
congestive chill.

"We come back here to Arkansas after freedom and I think my father
worked for Jack Hall three or four years. He wouldn't let him leave. He
raised my father and thought so much of him. He worked on the shares.

"After freedom I went to school. I learnt to read and write but I
just wouldn't _do_ it. I learnt the other chillun though. I did
_that_. I was into ever'thing. I learnt them that what I could do.
Blue Back? Them's the very ones I studied.

"In slavery times I had to rise as early as I could. Old master would
give me any little thing around the house that I wanted. They said he
was too old to go to war. Some of the hands run off but I didn't know
where they went to.

"Some of the people was better off slaves than they was free. I don't
study bout things now but sometimes seems like all them things comes
before me.

"I used to hear em talkin' bout old Jeff Davis. I didn't know what they
was talkin' bout but I heered em.