That was all woods
then. We children had to go in at night. You could hear the wolves and
the bears and things. We had to make a big fire at night to keep the
wolves and varmints away.
"My father was a skiffman. He used to cross the Arkansas River in a
ferry-boat. My father's name was Doc Blake. And my mother's name was
Hannah Williams before she morried.
"My father's mother's name was Susie somethin'; I done forgot. That is
too far back for me. My mother's mother was named Susie--Susie Williams.
"My father's master was named Jim Paty. My father was a slavery man. I
was too. I used to drive a horsepower gin wagon in slavery time. That
was at Pastoria Just this side of Pine Bluff--about three or four miles
this side. Paty had two places-one about four miles from Pine Bluff and
the other about four miles from England on the river.
"When I was driving that horsepower gin wagon. I was about seven or
eight years old. There wasn't nothin' hard about it. Just hitch the
mules to one another's tail and drive them 'round and 'round. There
wasn't no lines. Just hitch them to one another's tail and tell them to
git up. You'd pull a lever when you wanted them to stop. The mule wasn't
hard to manage.
"We ginned two or three bales of cotton a day. We ginned all the summer.
It would be June before we got that cotton all ginned. Cotton brought
thirty-five or forty cents a pound then.
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