SLAVE NARRATIVES - Library of Congress

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Interviewer Mrs* Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed Landy Bueker
2515 V* fourth Avenue, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
A#e 83
"I was horn in 1854 in the State of Georgia, Blbert County.
"I member some about the war* I went to the field when I was twelve*
Fulled fodder, picked peas and tended to the cow pen* I had to go then*
We had a good master* Our mistress wasn f t good though* She wouldn f t give
us enough to eat# Old master used to ask if we had enough to eat and he 9 d
pull out great big hams and cut em all to pieces and give em to us* Old
mistress would cry and say, f You T re givin 1 away all my good dinner. 1 But
she repented since the war* She said she didn't do right*
"We got here to Pine Bluff in f 61.
"Oh yes, I remember comin 1 here on the train and on the boat*
"Old mistress whipped us when she thought we needed it* I been pretty
good all my life*
"My father was a blacksmith and one day when I was six or seven I was
takin* his dinner when some dogs smelled the dinner and smelled me too and
they got after me* I had to climb a tree and they stayed around till they
heard some other dogs barkin* and ran off* I come down then and took my
bucket and left* No the r time some hogs chased me* They rooted all around
the tree till they heard somethin' crackle in the woods and run off and
then I f d come down*
"After the war I went to school three days and the teacher whipped me*
I went home and I didn f t go back* I went home and went to the field* I
had a mother and a sister and I tried to make a living for them*