saw the guards. I'd say, 'Give me a pistol.' They'd say, 'Come back
tomorrow and we'll give you one.' They had me runnin' back there every
day and I never did get one. They was Yankee soldiers.

"Our folks' master was William E. Johnson. Oh Lord, they was just as
good to us as could be to be under slavery.

"After they got free my people stayed there a year or two and then our
master broke up and went back to South Carolina and the folks went in
different directions. Oh Lord, my parents sho was well treated. Yes
ma'm. If he had a overseer, he wouldn't low him to whip the folks. He'd
say, 'Just leave em till I come home.' Then he'd give em a light
breshin'.

"My father run off and stay in the woods one or two months. Old master
say, 'Now, Jordan, why you run off? Now I'm goin' to give you a light
breshin' and don't you run off again.' But he'd run off again after
awhile.

"He had one man named Miles Johnson just stayed in the woods so he put
him on the block and sold him.

"I seed the Ku Klux. We colored folks had to make it here to Pine Bluff
to the county band. If the Rebels kotch you, you was dead.

"Oh Lord yes, I voted. I voted the Publican ticket, they called it. You
know they had this Australia ballot. You was sposed to go in the caboose
and vote. They like to scared me to death one time. I had a description
of the man I wanted to vote for in my pocket and I was lookin' at it so
I'd be sure to vote for the right man and they caught me. They said,