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Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States - From Interviews with Former Slaves - Arkansas Narratives, Part 2 by Work Projects Administration
page 87 of 341 (25%)
that he would be back home Monday morning in time for his work. I
remember myself when we moved away. That's when my memory first starts.

"I could see that old white woman come out begging and saying, 'Uncle
Washington, please don't carry Aunt Lize away.' But we went on away.
When we got where we was going, my mother made a pallet on the floor
that night, and the three children slept on the pallet on the floor.
Nothing to eat--not a bite. I went to bed hungry, and you know how it is
when you go to bed hungry, you can't sleep. I jerk a little nod, and
then I'd be awake again with the gnawing in my stomach. One time I woke
up, and there was a big light in the house, and father was working at
the table, and mama reached over and said, 'Stick your head back under
the cover again, you little rascal you.' I won't say what I saw. But
I'll say this much. We had the finest breakfast the next morning that I
ever ate in all my life.

"I used to hear my people talk about pateroles but I don't reckon I can
recall now what they said. There is a man in Washington named Bob
Sanders. He knows everything about slavery, and politics too. He used to
be a regular politician. He is about ninety years old. They came there
and got him about two year ago and paid him ten dollars a day and his
fare. Man came up and got him and carried him to the capitol in his car.
They were writing up something about Arkansas history.

"I have been married fifty-seven years. I married in 1881. My wife was a
Lemons. I married on February tenth in Tennessee at Stanton. Nancy
Lemons.

"I went to public school a little after the war. My wife and I both went
to Haywood after we were married. After we married and had children, we
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