A couple of years before that I rented five acres of land
from him for three dollars as acre (verbal agreement) sowed it down in
cotton. It done so well I made five bales of cotton on it. He saw the
prospects were so good that he went to the man who furnished me supplies
and told him that I had agreed to do my work on a third and fourth
(one-third of the seed and one-fourth of the cotton to go to the owner).
He get this although if he had stuck to the agreement he would not have
gotten but fifteen dollars. So he dealt me a blow there, but I got over
it.
Before this I had bought a piece of timber land in Moorehouse parish
(Louisiana) and was expecting to get the money to finish paying for it
from my cotton. The cost was $100.00. So when he put hands in my field,
it made me mad, and I left. (Brooks would have lost most of his cotton
if the hands had picked it.)
At Brinkley, I farmed on halves with Will Carter, one of the richest men
in Monroe County (Arkansas). I done $17.50 worth of work for Carter and
he paid me for it. Then he turned around and charged me up with it. When
we came to settle up, we couldn't settle. So finally, he said, "Figures
don't lie." and I said, "No, figures don't lie but men do." When I sed
that I stepped out and didn't get scared until I was half way home. But
nobody did anything. He sent for me but I wouldn't go back because I
knew what he was doing.
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