s.
Sellers didn't have none. Uncle Sam and uncle John made em mind.

"Sing--I say dey did sing. Sing about the cooking and about the milking
and sing in de field.

"I never did see nobody sold. But I heard them talk about selling em.
They took em off to sell em. That was the worst part about slavery. The
families was broke up. I never lived nowhere 'cept in South Carolina and
Prairie County (Arkansas). My folks come here and they kept writing for
me to come, and I come on the train. Mrs. Sellers son, Joe Sellers,
killed himself, shot himself, one Sunday evening. Didn't know how come
he done it. I was too little to know what they expected from the war.
The colored folks didn't have nothing to do with it 'cept they expected
to get freed. A heap of people went to the cities, some of them died.
After freedom things got pretty scarce to eat and there was no money. I
worked as a house girl, tended to the children, brushed the flies off
the table and the baby when it slept and swept the house and the yard
too. After I come here (to Arkansas) I married and I worked on the
farms. We share cropped. I raised my children, had chickens, geese, a
cow and hogs. When the cotton was sold we got some of it. Yes maam, I
show had rether be out there if I could jess work. We lived on Mr. Dick
Small's place till he sold out. We come to town a year and went back and
made enough in one year to buy dis place. It cost $300. Jess my two sons
and me. The others were married. My husband died on the farm. I come in
town and done one or two washings a week. Yes maam I walked here and
back. That kept me in a little money. It was about two miles. I washed
for Mr. L. Hall and part of the time for Mrs. Kate Hazen. I guess they
treated us right about the crop settlement. We thought they did. We
knowed how much was made and how much we got. The cheatin come at the
stores where the trading was done.

"I lives with my son and his wife. Sometimes I do my cooking and
sometimes I eat in there. I get $8.00 from the RFC and prunes, rice, and
a little dried milk. I buys my meal and sugar and lard and little
groceries with the money. It don't buy what I used to have on the farm.

"I don't remember much about the war. I was so little. I heard them talk
a lot about it and the way they killed folks. I thought it was awful. My
hardest time is since I got old and can't work."

FOLKLORE SUBJECTS

Little Rock District
Name of Interviewer: Irene Robertso