“One thing I done a long time was stay at the toll gate.  They had a heap of em when I was a boy.  The fences was rock or rail and big old wooden gates round and on it marked, “Toll Gate.”  I’d open and shut the gate.  Walkers go free.  Horseback riders—­fifteen cents.  Buggies—­twenty-five cents.  Wagons—­fifty cents.  The state broke that up and made new roads.  Some they changed a little and used.  After that I stand ’bout on roads through fields—­short ways folks went but where the farmers had to keep closed up on count of the crops.  I open and shut the gate.  They’d throw me a nickel.  That was first money I made—­stayin’ at toll gates about Columbia, Tennessee.

“Ku Klux come to our house and took my papa off wid em.  Mama was cryin’, she told us children they was goiner hurt him.  I recollect all bout it.  They thought my papa knowed about some man bein’ killed.  My papa died wid knots on his neck where they hung him up wid ropes.  It hurt him all his life after that.  It made him sick what all they done to him tryin’ to make him tell who killed somebody.  He was laid up a long time.  I recollect that.  When they found out papa didn’t know nothin’ bout it, they said they was sorry they done him so mean.

“I vote a Republican ticket lack my papa till I cluded it not the party, it is the man that rules right.  I voted fur Mr. Roosevelt.  I know he is.  (A Democrat) I know’d it when I voted for him.  Times is tough but they was worse ’fo he got elected.  Things you buy gets higher and higher that makes it bad.  We got two hogs, one cow, few chickens and a home.  I owns my home for a fact.  My wife is 73.  I am purty nigh 75 years old.  What make it hard on us, we is bout wore out.

“I been farmin’ and carpenterin’ all my life.  Last years I been farmin’ wid Mr. L.M.  Osborne at Osborne.  We work forty acres and made 57 bales.  I had a team and he had a team.  So I worked it on halves.  That was long time ago.  In 1929 I believe.  Best farmin’ I ever done.  We got twenty cents pound.”

Interviewer:  Mrs. Annie L. LaCotts
Person interviewed:  Adeline Burris, DeWitt, Arkansas
Age; 91

Adeline Burris is a little old white-haired wrinkled-faced mulatto or yellow Negro woman who says she was old enough to be working in the fields when the war began.  According to her story she must have been about 14 then, which would make her at least 90 years old now.  She looks as though she might be a hundred.  She is stooped and very feeble but can get around some days by the help of a stout walking stick; at other times she cannot leave her bed for days at a time.  She owns nothing and is living in the home of her daughter-in-law who is kind to her and cares for her as best she can.  She says she was born in Murry County, Tennessee.  Columbia was the county seat.  When asked if she was born during slavery time she said, “Yes, honey, my mammy was one of de slaves what belonged to Mr. Billie and Miss Liza Renfroe.