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Work Projects Administration

"Arkansas Narratives, Part 2"

They was there when the
War ended. They had some jewelry. I don't know where they kept it. They
sent all of the niggers fifteen miles on the river away from the
Yankees. Not a one of us ever run off. Not a one ever went to the War or
the Yankees. Jep Davis had been to get his mail on his horse. A Yankee
come up at the gate walking and took it. He asked for the bridle and
saddle but the Yankee laughed in his face. We never seen our horse no
more. 'Babe' we called her. She was a pretty horse and so gentle we
could ride her bare back.
"Jep Davis was religious. They had preaching at his church, the Baptist
church at Nuna, for white folks in the morning and a white preacher
preach for the niggers at the same church in the evening. He'd go to
prayer meeting on Wednesday night and Thursday night he would come to
the boys' house and read the Bible to his own niggers. We would sing and
pray. He never cared how much we would sing and pray but he never better
ketch 'em dancing. He'd whoop every one of 'em.
"I learned same of the ABC's in playing ball with the white children. We
never had a book. I never went to school in my life. The boys not
married but up grown lived in a house to their own selves.


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