tell you, people don't care nothin about you when you get old or
stricken down. They pretend they do, but they don't. My mind is good and
I got just as much ambition as I ever had. But I don't have the
strength.

"I haven't got but a few more days to lag round in this world. When you
get old and stricken, nobody cares, children nor nobody else."

Interviewer: Miss Bailie C. Miller
Person interviewed: Mag Brown, Clarksville, Arkansas
Age: 85

"I was born in North Carolina and come South with my white folks. They
was trying to git out of the war and run right into it. My mother died
when I was a baby. I don't remember my mother no more than you do. I
left my white folks. When I was 14 years old, we lived out in the
country. They was willing to keep me but after the war they was so poor.
The girls told me if I could come to town and find work I had better do
it. Two of them come nearly to town with me. They told me I was free to
come to town and live with the colored folks. I didn't know what it
meant to be free. I was just as free as I wanted to be with my white
folks. When I got to town I stayed with your aunt awhile then she sent
me down to stay with your grandma. A white girl who lived with them,
like one of the family, learned me how to cook and iron. I knew how to
wash.

"I don't know anything about the present generation. I ain't been able
to git out for the last year or two. I think I broke my foot, for I had
to go on crutches a long time.

"The white folks always sung but I don't know what they sung. I didn't
pay no tention to it then."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Mary Brown, Clarendon, Arkansas
Age: Born in 1860

"Mama was born in slavery but never sold. Grandma and her husband was
sold and brung eleven children to Crystal Springs. They was sold to Mr.
Munkilwell. I was born there. Grandma was born in Virginia. Her back was
cut all to pieces where she had been beat by her master. Both of them
was whooped. He was a hostler and blacksmith.

"When grandma was a young woman she didn't have no children, so her
master thought sure she was barren. He sold her to Taylors. Here come
'long eleven children. Taylor sold them. After freedom she had another.
He was her onliest boy. That was so funny to hear her tell it. I never
could forgit it long as I ever know a thing. Grandma's baby child was
seventy-four years old, 'cepting that boy what was a stole child. She
died no