"I hauled when it was so dark the team had to take me in home at night.
My circuit was ten miles a day.
"My young master Bill Williams come in April soon as he got home and
told us we was free but didn't have to leave. We stayed on and worked.
He said he had nothing but the land and we had nothing. At the end of
the year he paid off in corn and a little money. Us boys left then and
mother followed us about. We ain't done no better since then. We didn't
go far off.
"Forty-seven years ago I went to Weldon, North Carolina in a wagon, took
the train to Gettysburg and from there come to Biscoe, Arkansas. I been
about here ever since. Mr. Biscoe paid our way. We worked three years to
pay him back. I cleared good money since I cone out here. I had cattle I
owned and three head of horses all my own. Age crept up on me. I can't
work to do much good now. I gets six dollars--Welfare money.
"Times is a puzzle to me. I don't know what to think. Things is got all
wrong some way but I don't know whether it will get straightened out or
not. Folks is making the times. It's the folks cause of all this good or
bad. People not as good as they was forty years ago. They getting
greedy."
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: James Williams, Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 72
"I come from close to Montgomery, Alabama.
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