. I went back to my old
home in Hernando bout three months ago. Went where I was bred and born
but I didn't know the place it was tore up so.

"This younger generation whole lot different from when I was comin'
up. Yes'm, it's a whole lot different. They ain't doin' so well. I
have always tended to my own business. Cose I been arrested for
drivin' mules with sore shoulders. Didn't put me in jail, but the
officers come up. That was when I was workin' on the Lambert place. I
told em they wasn't my mules so they let me go.

"I can't tell you bout the times now. I hope it'll get better--can't
get no wusser."

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Vergil Jones,
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 70

"My parents was Jane Jones and Vergil Jones. Their owner was Colonel
Jones in Alabama. Papa went to the war and served four years. He got a
$30 a month Union pension long as he lived. He was in a number of
places. He fought as a field man. He had a long musket he brought home
from the war. He told us a heap of things long time ago. Seem lack
folks set down and talked wid their children more'n they do nowdays.

"Papa come to this State after the surrender. He married here. I am
the oldest of seven children. Mama was in this State before the war.
She was bought when she was a girl and brought here. I don't know if
Colonel Jones owned her or if papa had seen her somewhere else. He
come to her and they married. My mama was a house girl some and she
washed and ironed for Miss Fannie Lambert. They had a big family and a
big farm. Their farm was seven miles this side of Indian Bay, eight
miles to Clarendon. They had thirteen in family and mama had seven
children made nine in her family. She had a bed piled full of starched
clothes white as snow. Lamberts had three sets of twins. Our family
lived with the Lamberts 23 or 24 years. We started working for Mr. B.
J. Lambert and Miss Fannie (his wife). Mama nursed me and R. T. from
the same breast. We was raised up grown together and I worked for R.
T. till he died. We played with J. L. Black too till he was grown. He
was county judge and sheriff of this county (Monroe).

"Folks that helped me out is about all dead. I pick cotton but I can't
pick very much. Now I don't have no work till chopping cotton times
comes on. It is hard now. I would do jobs but I don't hear of no jobs
to be done. I asked around but didn't find a thing to do.

"I heard about