He commenced in the early fall hauling the cotton from Abbeville, South
Carolina to Augusta, Georgia. That was his business--teamster, hauling
cotton. He never did talk like his owners were so mean to him. Of
course, they weren't mean. When her master died and the property had to
be sold, his master bought her and her babies.

"My father met my mother before the war started. Colored people were
scarce in the locality where she lived. These white people saw my father
and liked him. And they encouraged her to marry him. She was only
seventeen. My father was much older. He remembered the dark day in May
and when the stars fell.

"He didn't show his age much though till he came to Little Rock. He had
been used to farming and city life didn't agree with him. He left about
seven years after coming here.

"My father and mother met and married in Mississippi. He came from South
Carolina and she came from Alabama. They had nine children. All of them
were born after the war. I am the oldest. Lee McCoy is my youngest
brother. You know him, I'm sure. He is the president of Rust College. I
was born right after the war. Don't put me down as no ex-slave. I was
born right after the war.

"Right after the war, my father farmed in Mississippi. He took a notion
to come to Arkansas in 1891. He brought his whole family with him. And I
have been out here ever since.

"I never saw any slave houses. I wasn't a slave. I have been to the
place where my mother was raised. I was teaching school near there and
just wanted to see. After her master died, Sam McCallister, his cousin,