ross the roads. I
know about that? I never seen one of them in my life.

"Election days years gone by was big times. I did vote. I voted regular
a long time. The last President I voted for was Wilson.

"I farmed and worked on steamboats on the Mississippi River. I was what
they called rousterbout. I loaded and unloaded freight, I worked on the
Choctaw, Jane White, Kate Adams, and other little boats a few days at a
time. Kate Adams burnt at Moons Landing. I stopped off here at Helena
for Christmas. Some people got drowned and some burned to death. The mud
clerk got lost. He went in and got two bags of silver money, put them in
his pockets. The stave plank broke and he went down and never come up.
He was at the shore nearly but nobody knew he had that silver in his
pockets. He never come up and he drowned. People seen him go in but the
others swum out. He never come up. They missed him and found him dead
and the two bags of silver. I was due to be on there but I wanted to
spend Christmas with grandma and my wife. The Choctaw carried ten
thousand bales of cotton at times. I worked at the oil mill sixteen or
seventeen years. I night watched on the transfer twenty-two years. I
come to Helena when I was thirty years old. I'm eighty-six now. The
worst thing I ever done was drink whiskey some. I done quit it. I have
asthma. The doctors say whiskey is bad on that disease. I don't tetch it
now.

"I think the present generation is crazy. I wish I had the chance they
have now. The present times is getting better. I ask the Lord to spare
me to be one hundred years old. I'm strong in the faith. I pray every
day. He will open the way. The times have changed in my life."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: William Brown, Hazen, Arkansas
Age: 67

I was born in Virginia but I was born after slavery. I heard my folks
talk a heap about oldern times. The way I come here was Dr. Hill brought
bout 75 families down to Mississippi to work on farms. I come to Deer
Creek close to Sunflower, Mississippi. I lived there 11 years and I
drifted to Arkansas.

I don't remember if they was in any uprisings or not. If they was any
rebellion cept the big rebellion I don't recall it. My whole families
was in de heat of the war.

My mother and father's owner was John Smith. I recollects hearin them
talk bout him well as if it was yesterday--we worked on McFowell place
close to Petersburg, Virginia when I was little. Then I