pa. Her ma was a cook
and house girl ahead of her. Ma was a fine cook. Heap better than I ever
was 'cause she never lacked the stuff to fix and I come short there.

"I heard ma tell this. Wherever she lived and worked, at Dr. Bowen's, I
reckon. The soldiers come one day and took their sharp swords from out
their belts and cut off heads of turkeys, chickens, geese, ducks,
guineas, and took a load off and left some on the ground. They picked up
the heads and what was left and made a big washpot full of dumplings.
She said the soldiers wasted so much.

"When I was young I seen a 'style block' at Holly Springs, Mississippi.
I was going to Tucker Lou School, ten miles from Jackson. That was way
back in the seventies. A platform was up in the air under a tree and two
stumps stood on ends for the steps. It was higher than three steps but
that is the way they got up on the platform they tole me.

"I think times are a little better. I gits a little ironing and six
dollars and commodities. The young generation is taking on funny ways. I
think they do very well morally 'cepting their liquor drinking habits.
That is worse, I think. They are advancing in learning. I think times a
little better.

"My husband had been out here. We married and I come here. I didn't like
here a bit but now my kin is all dead and I know folks here better. I
like it now very well. He was a farmer and mill man."

Interviewer: Mary D. Hudgins
Person Interviewed: Joe Golden
Age: 86
Home: 722 Gulpha Street, Hot Springs, Ark.

"Yes, ma'am to be sure I remembers you. I knew your father and all his
brothers. I knew your mother's father and your grandmother, and all the
Denglers. Your grandpappy was mighty good to me. Your grandmother was
too. Many's the day your uncle Fred followed me about while I was
hunting. I was the only one what your grandpappy would let hunt in his
garden. Yes, ma'am! If your grandmother would hear a shot across the
hill in the garden, she'd say, 'Go over and see who it is.' And your
grandfather would come. He'd chase them away. But if it was me, he'd go
back home and he'd tell her, 'It's just Joe. He's not going to carry
away more than he can eat. Joe'll be all right.'

"Yes, ma'am. I was born down at Magnet Cove. I belonged to Mr. Andy
Mitchell. He was a great old man, he was. Did he have a big farm and
lots of black folks? Law, miss, he didn't have nothing but children,
just lots of little children. He rented m