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Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Alice Bratton, Wheatley, Arkansas
Age: 56

"I was born a few miles from Martin, Tennessee. Mama was born in
Virginia. She and her sister was carried off from the Witherspoon place
and sold. She was Betty and her sister was named Addie.

"Their mama had died and some folks said they would raise them and then
they sold them. She said they never did know who it was that carried
them off in a big carriage. They brought them to Nashville, Tennessee
and sold them under a big oak tree. They was tied with a hame string to
a hitching ring. Addie wanted to set down and couldn't. She said,
'Betty, wouldn't our mama cry if she could see us off like this?' Mama
said they both cried and cried and when the man come to look at them he
said he would buy them. They felt better and quit crying. He was such a
kind looking young man.

"They lived out from Nashville a piece then. He took them home with him,
on a plank across the wagon bed. He was Master Davy Fuller. He had a
young wife and a little baby. Her name was Mistress Maude and the baby
was Carrie. She was proud of Betty and Addie. They told her their mama
died. Mama said she was good to them. She died the year of the surrender
and Master Davy took them all to his mother's and his papa put them out
to live with a family that worked on his place.

"They went to see Carrie and played with her till Addie married and mama
come close to Martin to live with them. Addie took consumption and died,
then mama married Frank Bane and he died and I was born.

"My pa was a white man. He was a bachelor, had a little store, and he
overcome mama. She never did marry no more. I was her only child. I
don't remember the man but mama told me how she got tripped up and
nearly died and for me never to let nobody trip me up that way. I sorter
recollect the store. It burned down one night. We lived around over
there till I was sixteen years old. We moved to a few miles of Corinth,
Mississippi on a farm. Mr. Cat Madford was the manager. I got married. I
married Will Bratton. We had a home wedding on Sunday evening. It was
cold and freezing and the freeze lasted over a week. Will Bratton was
black as night. I had one little boy. After mama died Will Bratton went
off with another woman. He come back but the place was mine. Mama left
it to me. I wouldn't let him stay there. I let him go on where he
pleased.

"Times been growing slacker for a long time. People live slack. Young
folks coming on slacker and slacker every day. Don't know how to do,
don't want to know. They get by better 'en I did. I work in the field
and I can't hardly get by. I see folks do nothing all the time. Seem
like they happy. Times is hard for some, easy for some. I want to live
in the country like I is 'cause I belongs there. I can work and be
satisfied! I did own my home. I reckon I still do. I got a little cow
and some chickens."

 Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Frank Briles
                    817 Cross Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: About 82 or 83

[HW: Gives up the Ghost]

"I was born right here in Arkansas. My father's name was Moses Briles.
My mother's name was Judy Briles. Her name before she was married I
don't know. They belonged to the Briles. I don't know their first name
either.

"My father was under slavery. He chopped cotton and plowed and scraped
cotton. That is where I got my part from. He would carry two rows along
at once. I was little and couldn't take care of a row by myself. I was
born down there along the time of the War, and my father didn't live
long afterwards. He died when they was settin' them all free. He was a
choppin' for the boss man and they would set them up on blocks and sell
them. I don't know who the man was that did the selling, but they tell
me they would sell them and buy them.

"I am sick now. My head looks like it's goin' to bust open.

"I have heard them tell about the pateroles. I didn't know them but I
heard about them. Them and the Ku Klux was about the same thing. Neither
one of them never did bother my folks. It was just like we now, nobody
was 'round us and there wasn't no one to bother you at all at Briles'
plantation. Briles' plantation I can't remember exactly where it was. It
was way down in the west part of Arkansas. Yes, I was born way back
south--east--way back. I don't know what the name of the place was but
it was in Arkansas. I know that. I don't know nothing about that. My
father and mother came from Virginia, they said. My father used to drive
cattle there, my mother said. I don't know nothin' except what they told
me.

"I learnt a little some thing from my folks. I think of more things
every time I talk to somebody. I know one thing. The woman that bossed
me, she died. That was about--Lord I was a little bitty of a fellow,
didn't know nothin' then. She made clothes for me. She kept me in the
house all the time. She was a white woman. I know when they was setting
them free. I was goin' down to get a drink of water. My father said.
'Stop, you'll be drowned.' And I said, 'What must I do?' And he said,
'Go back and set down till I come back.' I don't know what my father was
doing or where he was going. There was a man--I don't know who--he come
'round and said, 'You're all free.' My mama said, 'Thank God for that.
Thank God for that.' That is all I know about that.

"When I got old enough to work they put me in the woods splitting rails
and plowing. When I grew up I scraped cotton and worked on the farm.
That is where my father would come and say, 'Now, son, if anybody asks
you how you feel, tell them the truth.'

"I went to school one session and then the man give down. He got sick
and couldn't carry it no longer. His pupils were catching up with him I
reckon. It was time to get sick or somethin'.

"I never did marry. I was promised to marry a woman and she died. So I
said, 'Well, I will give up the ghost. I won't marry at all.'

"I ain't able to do no work now 'cept a little pittling here and there.
I get a pension. It's been cut a whole lot."