' They was
just little old kids but we had to call 'em Mars.
"What I know I'm gwine tell you, but you ain't gwine ketch me in no
tale.
"I 'member they was gwine put us to carryin' water for the hands next
year, and that year we got free. My mother shouted, 'Now I ain't lyin'
'bout dat.' I sure 'member when they sot the people free. They was just
ready to blow the folks out to the field. I 'member old Mose would blow
the bugle and he could _blow_ that bugle. If you wasn't in, you better
get in. Yes ma'am! The day freedom come, I know Mose was just ready to
blow the bugle when the Yankees begun to beat the drum down the road.
They knowed it was all over then. That ain't no joke.
"I was a full grown woman then I come to Arkansas; I wasn't no baby.
"I went to school one month in my life. That was in Mississippi.
"My Joe" (her husband) "just lack one year bein' a graduate. He went up
here to that Branch Normal. That boy had good learnin'. He could a
learnt me but he was too high tempered. If I missed a word he would be
so crabb'y. So one night I throwed the book across the room and said,
'You don't need try to learn me no more.'"
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: William L.
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