“Old mars used to strip my sister naked and make her lay down, and he would lift up a fence rail and lay it down on her neck.  Then he’d whip her till she was bloody.  She wouldn’t get away because the rail held her head down.  If she squirmed and tried to git loose, the rail would choke her.  Her hands was tied behind her.  And there wasn’t nothin’ to do but jus’ lay there and take it.

“I am almost a stranger here in Little Rock.  My father was named Lewis Hogan and I had one sister named Tina and one named Harriet.  His white folks what he lived with was Mrs. Thomas.  He was a carriage driver for her.  Pleas Collier bought him from her and took him to Louisiana.  All the people on my mother’s side was left in Georgia.  My grandmother’s name was Rachel.  Her white folks she lived with was named Dardens.  They all lived in Atlanta, Georgia.  I remember the train we got on when we left Georgia.  Grandma Rachel had one daughter named Siney.  Siney had a son named Billie and a sister named Louise.  And my grandmother was free when I first got big enough to know myself.  I don’t know how come she was free.  That was a long time before the war.  The part of Georgia we lived in was where chestnuts grow, but they wasn’t no chinkapins.  All my grandmother’s people stayed in Atlanta, and they were living at the time I left there.

“My mother’s name was Dinah Hogans and my father’s name was Lewis Hogans.  I don’t know where they were borned.  But when I knowed him, they was in Georgia.  My mother’s mars bought my father ’cause my mother heard that Collier was goin’ to break up and go to Louisiana.  My father told his mars that if he (Collier) broke up and left, he never would be no more good to him.  Then my mother found out what he said to Collier, so she told her old mis’ if Collier left, she never would do her no more good.  You see, my mother was give to Mrs. Collier when old Darden who was Mrs. Collier’s father died.  So Collier bought my father.  Collier kept us all till we all got free.  White folks come to me sometimes about all that.

“You jus’ oughter hear me answer them.  I tells them about it just like I would colored folks.

“‘Them your teeth in your mouth?’

“‘Whose you think they is?  Suttinly they’re my teeth.’

“‘Ain’t you sorry you free?’

“‘What I’m goin’ to be sorry for?  I ain’t no fool.’

“‘How old is you?’

“I tells them.  Some of ’em want to argue with me and say I ain’t that old.  Some of ’em say, ‘Well, the Lawd sure has blessed you.’  Sure he’s blessed me.  Don’t I know that?

“I’ve seen ’em run away from slavery.  There was a white man that lived close to us who had just one slave and he couldn’t keep him out the woods to save his soul.  The white man was named Jim Sales and the colored boy was named—­shucks, I can’t remember his name.  But I know Jim Sales couldn’t keep that nigger out the woods nohow.