SLAVE NARRATIVES Volume 4

Person interviewed: Ida Harper 819 West Pullen Street; Pine Bluff, Arkansas Age: 93 “Now what you want with me? I was born in Mississippi. I come here tollable young. I’se ninety-three now. “My old master mean to us. We used to watch for him to come in the big gate, then we run and hide. He used to come to the quarters and make us chillun sing. He make us sing Dixie. Sometimes he make us sing half a day. Seems like Dixie his main song. I tell you I don’t like it now. But have mercy! He make us sing it. Seems like all the white folks like Dixie. I’se glad when he went away to war. “But they used to feed you. Heap better meat than you get now. I tell you they had things to eat in them days. “I ’member when the soldiers was comin’ through and runnin’ the white folks both ways. Law chile—you don’t know nothin’! We used to hide in the cistern. One time when the Yankees come in a rush my brother and me hide in the feather bed.