ansas River in a
ferry-boat. My father's name was Doc Blake. And my mother's name was
Hannah Williams before she morried.

"My father's mother's name was Susie somethin'; I done forgot. That is
too far back for me. My mother's mother was named Susie--Susie Williams.

"My father's master was named Jim Paty. My father was a slavery man. I
was too. I used to drive a horsepower gin wagon in slavery time. That
was at Pastoria Just this side of Pine Bluff--about three or four miles
this side. Paty had two places-one about four miles from Pine Bluff and
the other about four miles from England on the river.

"When I was driving that horsepower gin wagon. I was about seven or
eight years old. There wasn't nothin' hard about it. Just hitch the
mules to one another's tail and drive them 'round and 'round. There
wasn't no lines. Just hitch them to one another's tail and tell them to
git up. You'd pull a lever when you wanted them to stop. The mule wasn't
hard to manage.

"We ginned two or three bales of cotton a day. We ginned all the summer.
It would be June before we got that cotton all ginned. Cotton brought
thirty-five or forty cents a pound then.

"I was treated nicely. My father and mother were too. Others were not
treated so well. But you know how Negroes is. They would slip off and go
out. If they caught them, he would put them in a log hut they had for a
jail. If you wanted to be with a woman, you would have to go to your
boss man and ask him and he would let you go.

"My daddy was sold for five hundred dollars--put on the block, up on a
stump--they called it a block. Jim Paty sold him. I forget the name of
the man he was sold to--Watts, I think it was.

"After slavery we had to get in before night too. If you didn't, Ku Klux
would drive you in. They would come and visit you anyway. They had
something on that they could pour a lot of water in. They would seem to
be drinking the water and it would all be going in this thing. They was
gittin' it to water the horses with, and when they got away from you
they would stop and give it to the horses. When he got you good and
scared he would drive on away. They would whip you if they would catch
you out in the night time.

"My daddy had a horse they couldn't catch. It would run right away from
you. My daddy trained it so that it would run away from any one who
would come near it. He would take me up on that horse and we would sail
away. Those Ku Klux couldn't catch him. Th