got his harvests in season. The other things
would be a help to him between times.

"My father came here because he thought that there was a better
situation here than in Georgia. Of course, the living was better there
because they had plenty of fruit. Then he worked on a third and fourth.
He got one bale of cotton out of every three he made. The slaves left
many a plantation and they would grow up in weeds. When a man would
clear up the ground like this and plant it down in something, he would
get all he planted on it. That was in addition to the ground that he
would contract to plant. He used to plant rice, peas, potatoes, corn,
and anything else he wanted too. It was all his'n so long as it was on
extra ground he cleared up.

"But they said, 'Cotton grows as high as a man in Arkansas.' Then they
paid a man two dollars fifty cents for picking cotton here in Arkansas
while they just paid about forty cents in Georgia. So my father came
here. Times was good when we come here. The old man cleared five bales
of cotton for himself his first year, and he raised his own corn. He
bought a pony and a cow and a breeding hog out of the first year's
money. He died about thirty-five years ago.

"When I was coming along I did public work after I became a grown man.
First year I made crops with him and cleared two bales for myself at
twelve and a half cents a pound. The second year I hired out by the
month at forty-five dollars per month and board. I had to buy my clothes
of course. After seven years I went to doing work as a millwright here
in Arkansas. I stayed at that eighteen months. Then I steamboated.

"We had a captain on that steamboat that never called any man by his
name. We rolled cotton down the hill to the boat and loaded it on, and
if you weren't a good man, that cotton got wet. I never wetted my
cotton. But jus' the same, I heard what the others heard. One day after
we had finished loading, I thought I'd tell him something. The men
advised me not to. He was a rough man, and he carried a gun in his
pocket and a gun in his shirt. I walked up to him and said, 'Captain, I
don't know what your name is, but I know you's a white man. I'm a
nigger, but I got a name jus' like you have. My name's Webb. If you call
Webb, I'll come jus' as quick as I will for any other name and a lot
more willing. If you don't want to say Webb, you can jus' say "Let's
go," and you'll find me right there.' He looked at me a moment, and then
he