SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

••- ia7 #675 39
Interviewer Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed Charlie Bigger
R«F«D«, three miles, Palestine, Arkansas
Age 85 plus, doesn't know age
*I was born six miles from Mounticellar close to the line of Morgan and
Jasper County* Mother belong to the Smiths* Her father was part Creek
(Indian)« They all was sold to Floyd Malone• His wife was Betsy Malone*
They had five children*
"When I was a child I lay under the loom day after day picking up the
sickle* Ma was a cook and a weaver too*
"Malone was a good man but his wife was one of f em* She was a terrible
piece of humanity* Father was a farm hand* They had a gin, a shoe shop,
and a blacksmith shop all on Floyd Malone 1 s place* I picked a little cotton
before f mancipation* Floyd Malone had to buy my mother to git her where my
father was*
"Some of the boys wore dresses till they was twelve or fifteen years
old* One fellar rode a mule or cow one the other to preaching* Ihile he
sit talking to his gal at the window a steer come up and et off his
dress tail* Boys got to courting before they got to take off their long
shirts*
"Ttiey wasn f t so good to mother* She run off several times* She went
'bout one and one-half miles to her mother on the Compton place* They
didn f t whoop her* They promised her a whooping* They whooped her and JOB
too but I never knowed *em to whoop my father* When they whoop my mother
I'd run off to place we lived and crawl under the house*