My father said.
'Stop, you'll be drowned.' And I said, 'What must I do?' And he said,
'Go back and set down till I come back.' I don't know what my father was
doing or where he was going. There was a man--I don't know who--he come
'round and said, 'You're all free.' My mama said, 'Thank God for that.
Thank God for that.' That is all I know about that.
"When I got old enough to work they put me in the woods splitting rails
and plowing. When I grew up I scraped cotton and worked on the farm.
That is where my father would come and say, 'Now, son, if anybody asks
you how you feel, tell them the truth.'
"I went to school one session and then the man give down. He got sick
and couldn't carry it no longer. His pupils were catching up with him I
reckon. It was time to get sick or somethin'.
"I never did marry. I was promised to marry a woman and she died. So I
said, 'Well, I will give up the ghost. I won't marry at all.'
"I ain't able to do no work now 'cept a little pittling here and there.
I get a pension. It's been cut a whole lot."
Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Mary Ann Brooks
James Addition, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 90
"I was born here in Arkansas. Durin' the war we went to Texas and stayed
one year and six months.
"My old master was old Dr. Brewster. He bought me when I was a girl
eight yeers old.
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