After that I went to Wheatley, Arkansas, about five miles west of
Brinkley. I made a crop for Goldberg. Jake Readus was Goldberg's agent.
The folks had told the white folks I wasn't no account, so I couldn't
get nothing only just a little fat meat and bread, and I got as naked as
a jaybird. About the last part of August, when I had done laid by and
everything. Jake Readus came by and told me what the Niggers had said
and said he knowed it was a lie because I had the best crop on the
place.
When Goldberg went to pay me off, he told Dr. Beauregard to come and get
his money. I said. "You give me my money; I pay my own debts. You have
nothing to do with it." When I said that you could have heard a pin
drop. But he gave it to me. Then I called the Doctor and gave him his
money and he receipted me. I never stayed there but one year.
I moved then down to Napel[TR: Possibly Kapel] Slough on Dr. West's
place. I wanted to rent but Dr. West wouldn't advance me anything unless
he took a mortgage on my place; so I wouldn't stay there. I chartered a
car and took my things back to Brinkley at a cost of ten dollars. I
stayed around Brinkley all the winter.
While I was at Wheatley, there was a man by the name of Will Smith who
married the daughter of Dr. Paster, druggist at Brinkley. Now Jim Smith,
poor white trash, attempted to assault Will Thomas' daughter.
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