be. They shoots craps and drinks and does low-down
things all the time. I ain't got no time with the young generation.
Times gone to pieces pretty bad if you axing me."

#728
Interviewer: Watt McKinney
Person interviewed: James Gill
R.F.D. Marvell, Arkansas
Age: 86
Occupation: Farmer

"Uncle Jim" Gill, an ex-slave eighty-six years of age, owns a nice two
hundred acre farm five miles north of Marvell where he has lived for the
past thirty-five years. "Uncle Jim" is an excellent citizen, prosperous
and conservative and highly respected by both white and colored. This is
molasses making time in the South and I found "Uncle Jim" busily engaged
in superintending the process of cooking the extracted juice from a
large quantity of sorghum cane. The familiar type of horse-power mill in
which the cane is crushed was in full operation, a roaring fire was
blazing in the crudely constructed furnace beneath the long pan that
contained the furiously foaming, boiling juice and that "Uncle Jim"
informed me was "nigh 'bout done" and ready to drain off into the huge
black pot that stood by the side of the furnace. The purpose of my visit
was explained and "Uncle Jim" leaving the molasses making to some
younger Negro accompanied me to the shade of a large oak tree that stood
near-by and told me the following story:

"My ole mars, he was name Tom White and my young mars what claimed me,
he was name Jeff. Young mars an' me was just 'bout same age. Us played
together from time I fust riccolect till us left de ole home place back
in Alabama and lit out for over here in Arkansas.

"Ole mars, he owned a heap of niggers back dere where us all lived on de
big place but de lan', it was gittin' poor an' red and mought near wore
out; so ole mars, he 'quired a big lot of lan' here in Arkansas in
Phillips County, but you know it was all in de woods den 'bout fifteen
miles down de ribber from Helena and just thick wid canebrakes. So he
sont 'bout twenty famblies ober here end dats how us happened to come
'cause my pappy, he was a extra blacksmith and carpenter and ole mars
knowed he gwine to haf to hab him to 'sist in buildin' de houses and
sich like.

"Though I was just 'bout seben year ole den, howsomeever, I 'member it
well an' I sure did hate to leave de ole home where I was borned and I
didn' want leave Mars Jeff either and when Mars Jeff foun' it out 'bout
'em gwine take me he cut up awful and just