get no money ahead for a long time. Then I had a family of 11 children.
Jes' 'fore I married I got to go to school four months' close to Cotton
Plant, where I married.

"When I was young I sho could knock off de work. I cummulated 80 acres
land in Lee County. I paid $900 for it, got in debt and had let it fur
'bout ($247.50) Two hundred forty-seven and a half dollars. All I got
outen it. I had a bad crop and had a little provision bill. I made on
time, man agreed to run me on then took it 'bout all.

"Then I still was a strong man an' we bought 40 acres 14 miles from
Cotton Plant and I had it 27 years. Then lost it.

"My second wife owned a house and garden at Wheatley half a mile or so
from town. We live over there. Our children all gone. She say she cooked
and washed and farmed for it. It cost $100.00.

"I could do heap work if I could get it. Old man can't get 'nuff regular
work to cover my house or buy me a suit closes. The Government gives me
$10.00 a month. That's a help out but it don't go fir high as provisions
is. Me an' the old woman both too feeble to do much hard work. I gets
all the odd jobs the white folks give me. Misses, I ain't lazy, I jess
gettin' old and not able to hold out to do much. Whut I could do they
give it to the young fellows cause they do it in a hurry.

"I used to vote right smart when they needed me to help out. I voted
for Hoover. Don't think it right the way the men settin' round and deir
wives workin' fer livin' and votin'. The women can vote if they want to
but I don't think it right. Seems lack the cart in front ob de horse
now.

"It wouldn't do no more good to vote in the Primary than it do in the
General election. It don't do much good nohow.

"Fur as I ever knowed the slaves had no uprisin's. They thought well
enough of their masters. Everybody worked then hard as they could. The
master he worked all time in the shop making things jess like he needed,
boards and handles, plows and things. Missus, everybody worked hard dem
days, both black and white, and that is the reason folks had plenty. The
old grandmas done work whut suited them and helped out. Now lack me, I
can't get the right work whut I able to do 'nuff to keep me livin'. It
is bad.

"If times was bad as they was few years ago all old folks done been
rotten, starved to death. Times is better but they sho ain't all right
yet.

"This young generation livin' so fast they stop thinkin'. They do well
to keep livin' t