So my father came
here. Times was good when we come here. The old man cleared five bales
of cotton for himself his first year, and he raised his own corn. He
bought a pony and a cow and a breeding hog out of the first year's
money. He died about thirty-five years ago.
"When I was coming along I did public work after I became a grown man.
First year I made crops with him and cleared two bales for myself at
twelve and a half cents a pound. The second year I hired out by the
month at forty-five dollars per month and board. I had to buy my clothes
of course. After seven years I went to doing work as a millwright here
in Arkansas. I stayed at that eighteen months. Then I steamboated.
"We had a captain on that steamboat that never called any man by his
name. We rolled cotton down the hill to the boat and loaded it on, and
if you weren't a good man, that cotton got wet. I never wetted my
cotton. But jus' the same, I heard what the others heard. One day after
we had finished loading, I thought I'd tell him something. The men
advised me not to. He was a rough man, and he carried a gun in his
pocket and a gun in his shirt. I walked up to him and said, 'Captain, I
don't know what your name is, but I know you's a white man. I'm a
nigger, but I got a name jus' like you have.
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