ve lived here ever since. This was just a big
woods and weed patch then. There weren't more than about six houses out
here this side of the Rock Island Railroad.

"I commenced voting in 1889. Cast my first ballot then. I never had any
trouble about it."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Ambus Gray
R.F.D. #1. Biscoe, Arkansas
Age: 80

"I was ten year old when the Civil War come on. I was born Tallapoosy
County, Alabama. I belong to Jim Gray. I recollect the paddyrollers. I
don't recollect the Ku Klux Klan. There was twelve boys and two girls in
our family in time. I was among the older set.

"Bout all I remembers bout slavery was how hard the hands had to work.
We sho did haf to work! When we wasn't clerin new ground and rollin pine
logs an burnin brush we was er buildin fences and shuckin an shellin
corn. Woman you don't know nufin bout work! We cler new groun all day
den burn brush and pile logs at nite. We build fences all day and kill
hogs and shuck corn dat night. No use to say word bout bein tired. Never
heard nobody complainin. They went right on singin or whislin'. Started
out plowin and drappin corn then plantin' cotton. Choppin' time come on
then pullin' fodder and layin' by time be on. Be bout big meetin time
and bout fo that or was over everybody was dun in the cotton field till
dun cold weather. I remembers how they sho did work.

"Both my parents was field hands. They stayed on two years after the war
was over. Jim Gray raised red hogs and red corn, whooper-will peas. He
kept a whole heap of goats and a flock of sheep.

"We didn't see no real hard times after the war. We went to Georgia to
work on Armstrongs farm. We didn't stay there long. We went to Atlanta
and met a fellar huntin' hands down at Sardis, Mississippi. We come on
there. Rob Richardson brought the family out here. I been here round
Biscoe 58 years when it was sho nuf swamps and woods.

"I don't think the Ku Klux ever got after any us but I seen em, I
recken. I don't know but mighty little. The paddyrollers is what I
dreaded. Sometime the overseer was a paddyroller. My folks didn't go to
war. We didn't know what the war was for till it had been going on a
year or so. The news got circulated round the North was fighting to give
the black man freedom. Some of em thought they said that so they'd
follow and get in the lines, help out. Some did go long, some didn't
want to go get kil