"They claimed I had hit him with brass knucks, but when I showed them my
hand--it was swollen double--and then showed them how the thumb was
broken, they agreed on what caused the damage. That thumb never did set
properly. You see, it's out of shape right now.


Domestic Life

"I met my wife going home. I was a train porter between here and
Memphis. She was put in my care to see that she took her train all right
out of Memphis, Tennessee, going on farther. I fell in love with her and
commenced courting her right from there. She was so white in color that
you couldn't tell she was colored by looking at her. After I married
her, I was bringing her home, and three white men from another town got
on the train and followed us, thinking she was white. Every once in a
while they would come back and peep in the Negro coach. Sometimes they
would come in and sit down and smoke and watch us. My sister notice it
and called my attention to it. I went to the conductor and complained.
He called their hand.

"It seems that they were just buying mileage from time to time and
staying on the train to be able to get off where I got off. The
conductor told them that if they went into Little Rock with the train
there would be a delegation of white people there to meet them and that
the reception wouldn't be a pleasant one, that I worked on the road, and
that all the officials knew me and knew my wife, and that if I just sent
a wire ahead they'd find themselves in deep. They got off the train at
the next stop, but they gave me plenty of eye, and it looked like they
didn't believe what had been told them.