you
come to a place that is called the Henderson Lane. You turn to the right
and go off the pike less than a mile and you come to a big one-story
house settin' on a hill where Peterson lives. Right on beyond that about
three-fourths of a mile on the right side of the road, you come to
George Gregory's. The mother of my church is about eighty-one years old
but she is over in Saline County. Her name is Jane Joyner.

"There are quite a few old persons around Woodson that can give you
information. But that is in Saline County, I think. Sweet Home,
Wrightsville, Toltec--all of them have a few old colored persons on the
farm that was here in slavery times."

Interviewer's Comment

Reeves' story was taken because of his clear memories of his parents
and grandparents. He described to me an old log house still standing in
Union County.

I got all agog with excitement. I asked him for the exact location. He
gave it. Then I suggested that maybe he would go down with me sometime
to visit it. He agreed. Then at the last moment caution began to assert
itself, and I said, "When was the last time you saw the cabin?"

He reflected a moment; then he said, "Waal, I guess it was a little more
'an fifty years ago."

I lost my enthusiasm.

Reeves told the Phill-la-me-york story which was told by Austin Pen
Parnell. You will find it in his story. The only difference between his
story and Parnell's is that Reeves had the conclusion. He claimed that
the old master got in a fight with one of the slaves present and yelled
out his identity when he was getting badly beaten. The story sounds
like it came from the Arkansas folklore collection or from someone who
contributed it to that collection.

An aftermath of Reeves' story is finding out that most people consider
Henry Banner, whose story has been previously given and whose age was
given as eighty-nine, is considered by many persons to be ninety-four.

Neely, one of the adult school-teachers, says that he has gone over
Banner's life carefully with him, and that he must have been twenty-one
or twenty-two at the close of the War because during slavery, he had
experience at logging, or rather at logrolling, a work so difficult that
only full-grown men were used at it. Since Banner is slightly built,
there is scarcely a possibility that he did such work before the normal
time.

[HW: Cf. 30715 for interview with Parnell.]

Interviewer: Bernice Bowden
Person Interviewed: Shepherd