der and wilder.
The parents today are too slack in raising them--too lenient. I don't
know where they are headed, what they mean, what they want to do, or
what to expect of them. And I'm too busy and have too hard a time
trying to make ends meet to keep up with their carryings-on."

NOTE: Mrs. Nellie James, widow of Prof. D. B. James, one of the most
successful Negro teachers who ever served in Russellville, is a quiet,
refined woman, a good housekeeper, and has reared a large and
successful family. She speaks with good, clear diction, and has none
of the brogue that is characteristic of the colored race of the
South.

Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Robert James
4325 W. Eighth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 66, or older
Occupation: Cook

"I was born in Lexington, Mississippi, in the year 1872. My mother's
name was Florida Hawkins. Florida James was her slavery name. David
Jones was her old master. That was in Mississippi--the good old
country! People hate it because they don't like the name but it was a
mighty good country when I was there. The white people there were
better to the colored people when I was there than they are here. But
there is a whole lots of places that is worse than Arkansas.

"I have been here forty-eight years and I haven't had any trouble with
nobody, and I have owned three homes in my time. My nephew and my
brother happened to meet up with each other in France. They thought
about me and wrote and told me about it. And I writ to my sister in
Chicago following up their information and got in touch with my
people. Didn't find them out till the great war started. Had to go to
Europe to find my relatives. My sister's people and mine too were born
in Illinois, but my mother and two sisters and another brother were
born in Mississippi. Their kin born in Illinois were half-brothers and
so on.

Refugeeing--Ghosts

"I heard my mother say that her master and them had to refugee them to
keep them from the Yankees. She told a ghost tale on that. I guess it
must have been true.

"She said they all hitched up and put them in the wagon and went to
driving down the road. Night fell and they came to a big two-story
house. They went to bed. The house was empty, and they couldn't raise
nobody; so they just camped there for the night. After they went to
bed, big balls of fire came rolling down the stairs. They all got
scared and run out of the house