Memphis an he stayed there.
We come on the train. I never did like no city.

We farmed bout, cleared land. Never got much fo the hard work we done.
The white man done learned how to figure the black folks out of what was
made cept a bare living.

I could read a little and write. He could too. We went to school a
little in Tennessee.

When we got so we not able to work hard he come to town and carpentered,
right here, and I cooked fo Mr. Hopkins seven years and fo Mr. Gus
Thweatt and fo Mr. Nick Thweatt. We got a little ahead then by the
hardest. I carried my money right here [bag on a string tied around her
waist]. We bought a house and five acres of land. No mum I don't own it
now. We got in hard luck and give a mortgage. They closed us out. Mr.
Sanders. They say I can live there long as I lives. But they owns it. My
garden fence is down and won't nobody fix it up fo me. They promises to
come put the posts in but they won't do it and I ain't able no mo. I had
a garden this year. Spoke fo a pig but the man said they all died wid
the kolerg [cholera]. So I ain't got no meat to eat dis year.

I ain't never had a chile. I ain't got nobody kin to me livin dat I
knows bout. When I gets sick a neighbor woman comes over and looks after
me.

I thinks if de present generation don't get killed they die cause they
too lazy to work. No mum dey don't know nuthin bout work. They ain't got
no religion. They so smart they don't pay no tention to what you advise
em. I never tries to find out what folks doin and the young generation
is killin time. I sho never did vote. I don't believe in it. The women
runnin the world now. The old folks ain't got no money an the young ones
wastes theirs. Theys able to make it. They don't give the old folks
nuthin. The times changes so much I don't know what goiner come next. I
jes stop and looks and listens to see if my eyes is foolin me. I can't
see, fo de cataracts gettin bad, nohow. Things is heap better now fo de
young folks now if they would help derselves. I'm too wo out. I can't do
much like I could when I was young. The white folks don't cheat the
niggers outen what they make now bad as they did when I farmed.

I never knowed about uprisings till the Ku Klux sprung up. I never heard
bout the Nat Turner rebellion. I tell you bout the onliest man I knowed
come from Virginia. A fellow come in the country bout everybody called
Solomon. Dis long fo the war. He was a free man he said. He would g