SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

Interviewer Pernella Anderson
Person Interviewed Edmond Smith
D Avenue
Age ? El Dorado3 Ark*
rr I was born in Arcadia, Louisiana a long, long time ago*
Now my work when I was a child was farmin** I did not stay a
child long, I been grown ever since I was fourteen* My father
lived till I was eleven, and I thought since I was the oldest
boy I could take his place of bossin 1 , but my mother would take
me down a button hole lower whenever I got too high*
"Before my papa died we had a good livin 1 . We lived with
his mistress's daughter, and we thought we lived in heaven* My
papa made all of the shoes and raised all of the cattle from
which he got the hide. We raised all the wool to make our wool
clothes and made all of the clothes we wore* And food - we did
not know what it was to go to a store to buy. Didn't have to do
that. You see, people now living out of paper sacks* Every
time they get ready to cook it f s go to the store* We old timers
lived out of our smokehouse*
11 In there we had dried beef, cured pork, sugar from syrup,
sweet potatoes, onions, Irish potatoes, plenty of dried fruit and
canned fruit, peanuts, hickory nuts, walnuts; eggs in the henhouse
and chickens on the yard, cows in the pen and milk and butter in
the house.
"My mama even made our plow lines. She had a spinning wheel
and you know how to spin? - you can make ropes for plow lines too*
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