used to make clothes too,
and she could work on one of these big looms."

Patrollers

"My mother told me that when the boys would go out to a dance, they
would tie a rope across the road to make the horses of the patrollers
stumble and give the dancers time to get away. Sometimes the horses'
legs would be broken."

Subject's Occupation

"I wants to work and can't get work; so they ain't no use to worry. I
used to cook. That is all I did for a living. I cooked as long as I
could get something for it. I can't get a pension."

Slave Houses

"I didn't see no log houses when I growed up. Everything was frame."

Right After the War

"Right after the War, my mother stayed around the house and continued to
work for her master. I don't know what they paid her. I can't remember
just how they got free but I think the soldiers gave 'em the
notification. They stayed on the place till I was big enough to work. I
didn't do no work in slave time because I wasn't old enough."

Choked on Watermelon Seeds

"One day I was stealing watermelons with some big boys and I got choked
on some seeds. The melon seeds got in my throat. I yelled for help and
the boys ran away. Old Tom Brewer made me get on my hands and jump up
and down to get the seeds out."

Leaving Galveston

"I was a small boy, might have been seven or eight years old, when I
left Galveston. We came to Bradley County, here in Arkansas. From
Bradley my mother took me to Pine Bluff. After I got big I went back to
Texas. Then I came from Texas here fifty-three years ago, and have been
living here ever since, cooking for hotels and private families.

"I never was arrested in my life. I never been in trouble. I never had a
fight. Been living in the same place ever since I first came here--right
here at 1112 Park Street. I belong to the Christian Church at Thirteenth
and Cross Streets. I quit working around the yard and the building
because they wouldn't pay me anything. They promised to pay me, but they
wouldn't do it."

Interviewer's Comment

Gillespie has an excellent reputation, as indeed have most of the
ex-slaves in this city. He is clear and unfaltering in his memory. He is
deliberate and selects what he means to tell. He is never discourteous.
He is a little nervous and cannot be held long at a time. Indian
characteristics in him are not especially prominent, but you note them
readily after learning of his ancestry. He is brown but slightly copp