there and he had one. One of them got wounded but he
didn't die.

"My mistress's oldest son, Ed Sterling, got shot in the Civil War. He
got shot right in the side at Franklin, Tennessee. It tore his whole
side off--near about killed him. But he lived to ride paterole. He was
mean. Catch a man in bed with his wife at night, he'd whip him and make
him go home. He was the meanest man in the world. All the other sons
were better than he was. His name was Ed Sterling.

"The first thing I remember was work. You weren't allowed to remember
nothing but work in slave times and you got whipped about that. You
weren't allowed to go nowhere but carry the mules out to the pasture to
eat grass. Sometimes they jump the fence and go over in the field and
eat corn. Me and another fellow named Sandy used to watch them all day
Sunday. Watching the mules and working in the fields through the week
was the first work I remember. Me and my sister worked on one row. The
two of us made a hand. She is down in Texas somewheres now. They taken
her from old lady Sterling's place. She give them to her son and he
carried them down in Texas. He had a broken leg and never did go to the
war. If he did, I never knowed nothing about it.

"None of the masters never give me anything. None of them as I knows of
never give anything to any of the slaves when they freed 'em. Never give
a devilish thing. Told them that they was free as they was and that they
could stay there and help them make crops if they wanted to. The biggest
part of them stayed. The rest went away. Their husbands taken them away.

"Right after the war my mother married an old fellow who used to be old
Holbert's nigger driver. He stayed on Sterling's place one night. He
stayed there a year. Then he married my mother and went to old Holbert's
place and of course, we had to go too. I stayed there and worked for
him. And my mama too and the two youngest sisters and the youngest
brother stayed with me. I run away from him in '86. I went down the
railroad about five miles and an old colored fellow give me a job. He
used to belong to the railroad boss.

"I worked nearly two years on that railroad; then I left and come on
down to Arkansas. I have been right here on this spot about forty years.
I don't know how long it is been since I first come here, but it is been
a long time ago. I paid fire insurance on this place for thirty-nine
years. I lived over the river before I came to North Little R