was so afraid of the
old colored teacher I learned in a month about all he could play. I
played for parties in eight states in slavery. All up in the North. They
trained children to dance then. I took Martha Jane, Easter Ann, Jane
Daniel, my young mistresses and their mother's sisters, Emma and Laura,
to parties and dances all time. We went to Ashville, North Carolina to a
big party. While they was having fine victuals after the dance they sent
me out a plate of turnip greens and turnips, fat meat and corn bread. I
took it and set it down. When Miss Martha Jane got in sight I took her
to our carriage. She said, 'Empty it to the dogs,' and give me one
dollar fifty cents and told me to go to town and buy my supper. I was
treated same as kin folks. I et and drunk same as they had to use. After
freedom I fixed up twice to move back to my young master. Once he sent
me three hundred fifty dollars to move on. Betty fell off the porch and
broke her thigh. That ended my hopes of going back. Betty was my first
wife. I had seven children by her and one by my second wife and this
wife ain't had none. She's been married twice though.

"I got one boy in Virginia seventy-three years old and one boy
sixty-eight years old. My boys are scattered. One lives here. I don't
hear from them now.

"After the War I come to Madison. It was a thriving little river town
surrounded on all sides by wilderness. There were thousands of Indians
camped in the neighboring woods. There was nothing but wooded hills
where Forrest City now stands.

"When General Nathan Bedford Forrest built the cut between Forrest City
and Madison for the road, I was his cook and the first fireman to make
the run through the cut. I used to drive a stagecoach over the Old
Military Road through Pine Tree on the stage run from Memphis to Little
Rock.

"Game was the nicest thing the country afforded. I killed bear and other
wild game on sites where Marianna, Wynn, and Jonesboro now stand. Where
this house now is was a lake then. (West part of town on north side of
the railroad track.) They caught fish in it then.

"When I heard Benjamin Harrison had been elected President of the United
States, I asked Mr. George Lewis to write to him for me. I was working
for him then. I handled freight at the depot for him. He was dubious of
me knowing such a person but wrote it to please me. A few weeks a reply
come to our letter and a ticket.

"I got my fiddle and went and visited two w