Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Maggie Broyles. Forrest City. Arkansas
Age: About 80?
"I was born in Decatur, Tennessee. Mother was sold on the block at
public auction in St. Louis. Master Bob Young bought a boy and a girl.
My father was a full-blood Irishman. His name was Lassiter. She didn't
have no more children by him. He was hired help on Bob Young's place.
"Bob Young had one thousand five hundred acres of land. He had several
farms. Little Hill and Creek farms. They had a rock walk from the
kitchen to the house. I slept in a little trunnel bed under my mother's
mistress' bed. The bed was corded and had a crank. They used no slats in
them days. We called Master Bob Young's wife Miss Nippy; her name was
Par/nel/i/py. They was good old people. His boys was rough. They drunk
and wasted the property.
"The white folks had feather beds and the slaves had grass beds. We'd
pull grass and cure it. It made a'good bed. Miss Nippy learnt us to
work. I know how to do near 'bout anything now. She kept an ash hopper
dripping all the time. We made all our soap and lye hominy by the
washpots full. Mother cooked and washed and kept house. She took the
lead wid the house-work. Miss Nippy ride off when she got ready. Mother
went right on wid the work. I took care of the chickens and took the
cows to the pasture. I helped to wash clothes. I stood on a block to
turn meat. We had a brick stove and a grill to fry meat on. We had good
clothes and good to eat. After I was grown I'd go back to see Miss
Nippy. She raised me. She say, 'I thought so much of your mama. I love
you. I hope you live a long time.' Mama had a hard time and Miss Nippy
knowd all about it.
"After Bob Young bought mother he went back and bought Aunt Sarah. They
growed up together. They could dance with a glass of water on their
heads and never spill a drap.
"Ma said when she married they had a corn shucking and a big dinner four
o'clock in the morning. Her name was Luiza. She had two children by him.
Aunt Jane on Welches place took him away from her. He quit mother cold
to go wid her. After freedom she married Ben Pitts. The way she married
at the corn shucking, they jumped over the broom back'ards and Master
Bob Young 'nounced it. She was killed no time after freedom, but she had
had six children. Miss Nippy kept me. She was good to me and trained me
to read. We all never left after freedom. I never left till I was good
and grown.
"I always thought Master Bob Young buried his money during the War.
Children wasn't allowed to watch and ask questions. I was standing in
the chimney corner and seen him bury a box of something in the flower
garden. I was in Miss Nippy's room. I never did know if it was money or
what. He had a old yaller dog followed him all the time. Truman was a
speckled dog set about on the front porch to bark.
"Sam, the boy that was bought when I was in St. Louis, was hard to
control. Bob Young beat him. He died. They said he killed him. They
buried him in the white folks' cemetery.
"They celebrated Christmas visiting and big parties. We would have
eggnog and ten or fifteen cakes. Master Bob Young was a consumptive. He
had it thirty-five years. They all died out with it. They kept a big ten
or fifteen gallon demijohn with willow woven around the bottom full of
whiskey, all the time upstairs. They kept the door locked.
"I stole miny ah drink. Find the door unlocked. I got too much one time.
It made me sick. I thought I had a chill. She thought I been upstairs.
They was particular with the children, both black and white then. They
put the children to bed by sundown and they would set around the fire
and talk. She raised Elnora and the baby Altona after mother got killed.
She give them good clothes and good to eat. Their papa took the boy. He
left after mother got killed. We took a pride in the place like it was
our own. We didn't know but what it was our very own.
"We had a acre in garden. We raised everything. We had three or four
thousand pounds of meat and three cribs of corn. I ketched it when I
left them. I made thirty-three crops in my life. My children all grown
and gone. My son-in-law died. He had dropsy eight months. He had a dead
liver. I've wanted since he died. I've had a hard time since he died. He
was a worker and so good to us all.
"Mother worked with a white woman. Mother was full-blood Indian herself.
The woman's husband got to dealing with his daughter. She had three
babies in all. They said they put them up in the ceiling, up in a loft.
This old man got mad with Bob Young and burnt his gin. Mother seen him
slipping around. They ask her but she wouldn't tell on him, for she
didn't see him set it on fire. They measured the tracks. He got scared
mother would tell on him. One night a colored man on the place come
over. Her husband was gone somewhere and hadn't got home. She was
cooking supper. They heard somebody but thought it was a pig come
around. Hogs run out all time. The step was a big limestone rock. She
opened the door and put the hot lid of the skillet on it to cool. Stood
it up sideways. Then they heard a noise at that door. It was pegged. So
she went along with the cooking. It wasn't late. He found a crack at the
side of the stick and dirt chimney, put the muzzle of the gun in there
and shot her through her heart. The man flew. She struggled to the edge
of the bed and fell. The children was asleep and I was afraid to move.
The moon come up. I couldn't get her on the bed. I put a pillow under
her head and a quilt over her, but I didn't think she was dead. The baby
cried in the night. I was so scared I put the eight-months-old baby down
under there to nurse. It nursed. She was dead then, I think now. When
four o'clock come it was daylight. The little brother said, 'I know
what's the matter, our mama's dead.' I went up to Mr. Bob Young's. He
brought the coroners. I was so young I was afraid they was going to take
us to jail. I asked little brother what they said they was going to do.
He said, 'They are going to bury mama in a heep (deep) hole. They set
out after her husband and chased him clear off. They thought he shot her
by him not coming home that night and her cooking supper for him.
"This white man left and went to Texas. His wife said the best woman in
Decatur had been killed. They put him on the gallows for killing his
daughter's babies, three of them and put them in the loft. He told how
he killed mother. He had murdered four. He was afraid mother would tell
about him. She knowd so much. She didn't tell. Indians don't tell. She
was with his girl when the first baby was born, but she thought it died
and she thought the girl come home visiting, so his wife said she had
told her to keep her from telling. It was a bad disgrace. His wife was a
good, humble, kind woman.
"Master Bob Young sent for Ben Pitts after they'd run him off, and he
let him have his pick of us. He took the boy and lived on the place. Her
other husband come and got his two children. Miss Nippy took our baby
girl and the other little girl. I was raised up at her house, so she
kept me on. Kept us all till we married off.
"I'd feel foolish to go try to vote. I'm too old now.
"I don't get help from the government yet. We are having a hard time to
scratch around and not go hungry."