Then I left and went back to Brinkley and worked at the Sawmill again.
That was in 1904. I went to Jonesboro. I had just money enough to go to
Jonesboro, and I had a couple of dollars over. I had never been out
before that; so I spent that and didn't get any work. I stayed there
three days and nights and didn't get anything to eat. Lived in a box
car. Then I went to work with the Cotton Belt.

My boarding mistress decided to go up to fifteen dollars for board. I
told her I couldn't pay her fifteen dollars for that month, but would
begin next month. She wouldn't have that and got the officers to look
for my money so I caught the train and went back to Brinkley and worked
on the railroad again from the Cotton Belt to the Rock Island.

I was getting along all right and I done my job, but when the foreman
wanted me to work on the roof and I told him if that was all he had for
me to do he could pay me off because that was off the ground and I was
fraid of falling. He said that I was a good hand and that he hated to
lose me.

In March, 4, 1907, I came here (Little Rock) and at first rolled
concrete in Niemeyer's at $1.50 a day where the other men were getting
from two to two and a half dollars. They quit for more wages and I had
to quit with them. Then I worked around till May 24 when I was hired at
the Mountain Shops as Engine wiper for about six or eight months, then
painted flues for three or four months, then was wood hauler for about
thirteen or more years, then took care of the situation with shavings
and oil, then stayed in wash room six or seven years until I was
retired. I had control of the ice house, too.

IDEAS ABOUT THE PRESENT

Young people are just going back to old Ante-Bellum days. They are going
to destruction. They got a way of their own and you can't tell them
anything. They don't educate anything but their heads. The heart isn't
educated and if my heart is black as my hat, can I do anything for God?
The old people are not getting a square deal. Some of them are being
moved.

SCHOOLING

I did not get much schooling. Between the time I was old enough to go to
school and the time I went to the field, I got a little. I would go to
school from July to September, and also about six weeks in January.

They had public school taught by some of the people. I went to a white
man once. An old white woman taught there before him. I went to a Negro
woman, Old Lady Abbie Lindsay. She lives here now down