ome Yankees come. I run hid around Miss Betty's long dress.
She was crying. They was pulling her rings off her fingers. I told them
to quit that. One of the mean things said, 'Little nigger, I shoot your
head off.' They took all her nice clothes. They said they took all
niggers. I sassed them. They went in another room. I shot under Miss
Betty's big skirt. They looked about for me but they thought I run off
to my mama. She was gone but they didn't know it. I seen my best times
then. We had a good time there. Miss Betty was good and kind to me. Good
as I wanted. I wish I had that good now.

Freedom

"The soldiers come and I knowed it was the Yankees I hated. They took
all they could find and wasted a lot of it. I was scared. I kept hid
about. The slaves put their beds and clothes up on the wagons and went
off behind them and some clumb up in the wagons. I heard Miss Betty say,
'They need not follow them off, they are already free.' The way she said
it, like she was heart broken, made me nearly cry and I remember her
very words till this day. She was a good woman.

"Mama come and got me long time after that and I didn't want to go nor
stay neither. It was like taking me off from my own home. Papa was
freeborn and freedom I couldn't understand till I was long grown. I
never got a whooping in my life. I was taught politeness.

"During slavery we bought mighty little. Flour in barrels, salt. We had
Maple sugar and sorghum molasses in bounty. We was happy and had plenty
to eat and wear.

"I learned to make the fine cakes from a Jew woman (Jewess), Mrs. Isaac.
I've been called a cook here in Forrest City. I was taught by Mrs. Isaac
to make angel food, coffee cake, white bread and white cakes. From that
I made the other kinds my own self."

Interviewer's Comment

People in Forrest City send for Ida and keep her a week or two baking
Christmas and wedding cakes.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Milton Ritchie
R.F.D., Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 78

"I was born in Marietta Hotel at Marietta, Georgia. The hotel belong to
Milton Stevens. He had two sons. One died fo I was born and Pink was in
the war. Mistress Thursday was old moster's wife. We all had to refugee.
My sister was down in the bottoms with all the slaves and cattle when
she died. She took sick and died suddenly. They heard the soldiers was
coming to Atlanta and knowed they would come by Marietta. Moster Steve