I think Beaumont sold 'em to
Bradley. That's the way I always heered 'em talk. I think they claimed
their owners was pretty good to 'em. I know I heered my father say he
never did get a whippin' from either one of 'em.
"Of course my mother wasn't a Bradley fore she married, she was a
Murphy.
"I had one brother four years older than I was. He was my half-brother
and I had a whole brother was two years older than I.
"First place I lived in Arkansas was near Blytheville. I lived there
four years. I was married and farmin' for myself.
"I went from Hardin County, Tennessee to Blytheville, Arkansas by land.
Drove a team and two cows. I think we was on the road four days. My wife
went by train. You know that was too wearisome for her to go by land.
"I had been runnin a five-horse crop in Tennessee and I carried three
boys that I used to work with me.
"The last year I was there I cleared $1660.44. I never will forget it. I
made a hundred and ten bales of cotton and left 2000 pounds of seed
cotton in the field cause I was goin' to move.
"My folks was sick all the time. Wasn't any canals in that country, and
my wife had malaria every year.
"After I got my crop finished I'd get out and log. I was raised in a
poor county and you take a man like that, he's always a good worker. I
rented the land--365 acres and I had seven families workin for me.
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