My father and mother had fourteen children
altogether. My mother died the year after we came out here. That would
be about 1875. I never had but three children because my wife died
early. Two of them are dead.
"Right after freedom, my father plaited baskets and mats. He shucked
mops, put handles on rakes and did things like that in addition to his
farming. He was a blacksmith all the time too. He used to plait collars
for mules. He farmed and got his harvests in season. The other things
would be a help to him between times.
"My father came here because he thought that there was a better
situation here than in Georgia. Of course, the living was better there
because they had plenty of fruit. Then he worked on a third and fourth.
He got one bale of cotton out of every three he made. The slaves left
many a plantation and they would grow up in weeds. When a man would
clear up the ground like this and plant it down in something, he would
get all he planted on it. That was in addition to the ground that he
would contract to plant. He used to plant rice, peas, potatoes, corn,
and anything else he wanted too. It was all his'n so long as it was on
extra ground he cleared up.
"But they said, 'Cotton grows as high as a man in Arkansas.' Then they
paid a man two dollars fifty cents for picking cotton here in Arkansas
while they just paid about forty cents in Georgia.
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