After Mr. Parks came to Arkansas he lived near what is now Prarie Grove,
but what do you think it was called then--Hog Eye. Later on they named
it Hillingsley for a man who settled there. We were two miles out on the
Wire Road, the one the telegraph line came in on, Honey. Almost every
conmunity had a 'Wire Road'.
It was the custom to give a girl a slave when she was married. When Miss
Parks became Mrs. Blakeley she moved to Fayetteville and chose me to
take with her. She said since I was only 5 she could raise me as she
wanted me to be. But I must have been a lot of trouble and after she had
her baby she had to send me back to her father to grow up a little. For
you might say she had two babies to take care of since I was too little
to take care of hers. They sent a woman in my place.
Honey, when I got back, I was awful: I had been with the negroes down in
the country and said 'hit' and 'hain't' and words like that. Of course
all the children in the house took it up from me. Mrs. Blakeley had to
teach me to talk right. Your Aunt Nora was born while I was away. I was
too little to take full charge of her, but I could sit in a chair and
hold her on my lap.
Mrs. Blakeley taught her children at home. Her teaching was almost all
they had before they entered the University. When I was little I wanted
to learn, learn all I could, but there was a law against teaching a
slave to read and write.
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