Interviewer: Mrs. Bernice Bowden
Person interviewed: Frank Larkin
618 E. Fifteenth, Pine Bluff, Arkansas
Age: 85
"I was somewhere 'bout twelve years old when the Civil War ended. I was the carriage driver, fire maker, and worked in the field some.
"I was bred and born in Virginia and I was sold; I was sold. My first old boss was a Rhodes and he sold me to a man named Larkin. See, we had to take our names from our boss. Me and my mother both was sold. I was somewhere between seven and eight years old.
"Then old boss give my mother to his daughter and she carried her to Texas and he kept me. Never have seen her since.
"He was good to me sometimes but he worked us night and day. Had a pile of wool as big as this room and we had to pick it and card it 'fore we went to bed. Old boss was sittin' right there by us. Oh, yes'm.
"Old boss was better to me than old missis. She'd want to whip me and he'd say he'd do it; and he'd take me down to the quarters and have a cow-hide whip and he would whip a tree and say, 'Now you holler like I'm whippin' you.' I'd just be a bawlin' too I'm tellin' you but he never hit me nary a lick.
"All the chillun, when they was clearin' up new ground, had to pick up brush and pile it up. Ever'body knowed how much he had to do. Ever' woman knowed how much she had to weave. They made ever'thing — shoes and all.
"Them Yankees sure did bad — burned up the cotton and the corn. I seen one of 'em get up in a tree and take his spyglass and look all around; directly he'd come down and went just as straight to that cotton as a bird to its nest. Oh, yes ma'am, they burned up everything. I was a little scared of 'em but they said they wasn't goin' to hurt us. Old master had done left home and gone to the woods. It was enough to scare you — all them guns stacked up and bayonets that long and just as keen. Come in and have old missis cook for 'em. Sometimes they'd go and leave lots to eat for the colored folks and maybe give 'em a blanket. Wouldn't give old missis anything; try to make her tell where the money was though.
"When they said Vicksburg was captured, old master come out hollerin' and cryin' and said they taken Vicksburg and we was free. Some of 'em stayed and some of 'em left. Me and my grandma and my aunt stayed there after we was freed 'bout two years. They took care of me; I was raised motherless.
"I farmed all my life. Never done public work two weeks in my life. Don't know what it is.
"Old master had them blue back spellers and 'fore freedom sometimes he'd make us learn our ABC's.
"And he'd let you go to church too. He'd ask if you got 'ligion and say, 'Now, when the preacher ask you, go up and give him your hand and then go to the back.' In them days, didn't have any but the white folks' church. But I was pretty rough in them days and I didn't j'ine.
"But I tell you, you'd better not leave the plantation without a pass or them paddyrollers would make you shout. If they kotch you and you didn't have a pass, a whippin' took place right there.
"Oh Lord, that's been a long time. I sits here sometimes and looks back and think it's been a long time, but I'm still livin'.
"I've always tried to keep out of trouble. 'Co'se I've had some pretty tough times. I ain't never been 'rested fer nothin'. I ain't never been inside of a jail house. I've had some kin folks in there though.
"I've been a preacher forty years. Don't preach much now. My lungs done got decayed and I can't hold up. Some people thinks preachin' is an easy thing but it's not.
"Prettiest thing I ever saw when the Yankees was travelin' was the drums and kettledrums and them horses. It was the prettiest sight I ever saw. Them horses knowed their business, too. You couldn't go up to 'em either. They had gold bits in their mouths and looked like their bridles was covered with gold. And Yankees sittin' up there with a sword.
"Old boss had a fine saddle horse and you know the Yankees had a old horse with the footevil and you know they turned him loose and took old boss's saddle horse. He didn't know it though; he was in the woods.
"I believe there is people that can give you good luck. I know a woman that told me that I was goin' to have some good luck and it worked just like she said. She told us I would be the onliest man on the place that would pay out my mule and sure 'nough I was. I cleared forty dollars outside my mule and my corn. She said I was born to be lucky. Told me they would be lots of people work agin me but it wouldn't do no good."