Austin Pen Parnell
From:
Arkansas
Interviewer: Samuel S. Taylor
Person interviewed: Austin Pen Parnell
4314 W. Seventeenth Street, Little Rock, Arkansas
Age: 73
Occupation: Carpenter
Birth and General Fact About Life
"I was born April fifteenth, 1865, the day Lincoln was assassinated, in
Carroll County, Mississippi, about ten miles from Grenada. It's about
half the distance between Grenada and Carrollton. Carrollton is our
county seat but we went to Grenada more than we went to Carrollton.
"When I got older, I moved to Grenada and I come from there here. I was
about thirty-five years old when I moved to Grenada. About 160 acres of
land in Grenada was mine. I bought it, but heirs claimed the place and I
had to leave. I had no land then, only a lot here and I came over here
to look it over. A lady had come to Mississippi selling property and she
had a plat which she said was in Little Rock not far from the capitol.
Her name was Mrs. Putman. The place was on the other side of the
Fourche. But I didn't know that until I came here. She misguided me. I
came to Arkansas and looked at the lot and didn't want it. I made a trip
over here twice before I settled on living in Little Rock. I told the
others who had bought property from her the truth about its location.
They asked me and I hate to lie. I didn't knock; I just answered
questions and didn't volunteer nothing. They all quit making their
payments, Just like I did. My land had a rock on it as big as a bale of
cotton.
"Mr. Herring thought hard of me because I told the others the truth. I
went into the office one day and Mr. Herring said, 'Parnell, I
understand you have been knocking on me.' I said, 'Well, I'll tell you,
Mr. Herring, if telling the truth about things is knocking on them, I
certainly did.' He never said anything more about it, and I didn't
either.
"I rented a place on Twelfth and Maple and then rented around there two
or three times, and finally bought a place at 3704 West Twelfth Street.
I moved to Little Rock March 18, 1911. That was twenty-seven years ago.
Parents
"My father was named Henry Parnell. He died in the year 1917 in the time
of the great war. He was ninety-five years old when he died. His master
had the same name. My mother's name was Priscilla Parnell. She belonged
to the same family as he did. They married before freedom. My father was
a farmer and my mother was a housewife and she'd work in the field too.
"My grandmother on my mother's side was named Hester Parnell. I don't
know what her husband's name was. My mother, father, and grandmother
were all from North Carolina. My grandmother did house and field work.
House
"My mother and father lived in a two-room house hewed out of big
logs--great big logs. The logs were about four inches thick and twelve
inches wide. It didn't take many of them to build a wall--about ten or
twelve of them on a side. They were notched down so as to almost come
together. They chinked up the cracks with mud and covered it with a
board.
"I laid in bed many a night and looked up through the cracks in the
roof. Snow would come through there when it snowed and cover the bed
covers. We thought you couldn't build a roof so that it would keep out
rain and snow, but we were mistaken. Before you would make a fire in
them days, you had to sweep out the snow so that it wouldn't melt up in
the house and make a mess. But we kept healthy just the same. Didn't
have no pneumonia in those days.
"The house had two rooms about eight feet apart. The rooms were
connected by a hall which we called a gallery in those days. The hall
was covered by the same roof as the house and it had the same floor. The
house sot east and west and had a chimney in each end. The chimneys were
made out of sticks and mud. I can build a chimney now like that.
"It was large at the bottom and tapered at the top. It was about six or
seven feet square at the bottom. It grew smaller as it went toward the
top. You could get a piece of wood three and a half or four feet long in
the boddom of it. Sometimes the wood would be too large to carry and you
would just have to roll it in.
"The floors was boards about one by twelve. There were two doors in each
room--one leading outside and the other to the hall. If there were any
windows, I can't remember them. We didn't need no windows for
ventilation.
"This was the house that I remember first after freedom. I remember
living in it. That was about seven or eight years after freedom. My
father rented it from the big man named Alf George for whom he worked.
Mr. George used to come out and eat breakfast with us. We'd get that
hoecake out of the ashes and wash it off until it looked like it was as
clean as bread cooked in a skillet. I have seen my grandmother cook a
many a one in the fire. We didn't use no skillet for corn bread. The
bread would have a good firm crust on it. But it didn't get too hard to
eat and enjoy.
"She'd take a poker before she put the bread in and rake the ashes off
the hearth down to the solid stone or earth bottom, and the ashes would
be banked in two hills to one side and the other. Then she would put the
batter down on it; the batter would be about an inch thick and about
nine inches across. She'd put down three cakes at a time and let 'em
stay there till the cakes were firm--about five minutes on the bare hot
hearth. They would almost bake before she covered them up. Sometimes she
would lay down as many as four at a time. The cakes had to be dry before
they were covered up, because if the ashes ever stuck to them while they
were wet, there would be ashes in them when you would take them out to
eat. She'd take her poker then and rake the ashes back on the top of the
cakes and let 'em stay there till the cakes were done. I don't know just
how long--maybe about ten or twelve minutes. She knew how long to cook
them. Then she'd rake down the hearth gently, backward and forward, with
the poker till she got down to them and then she'd put the poker under
them and lift them out. That poker was a kind of flat iron. It wasn't a
round one. Then we'd wash 'em off like I told you and they be ready to
eat.
"Mr. George would eat the ash cake and drink sweet milk. 'Auntie, I want
some of that ash cake and some of that good sweet milk.' We had plenty
of cows.
"Two-thirds of the water used in the ash cake was hot water, and that
made the batter stick together like it was biscuit dough. She could put
it together and take it in her hand and pat it out flat and lay it on
the hearth. It would be just as round! That was the art of it!
"When I go back to Mississippi, I'm going back to that house again. I
don't remember seeing the house I was born in. But I was told it was an
ordinary log house just like those all the other slaves had,--just a
one-room log house.
Freedom
"My father went to the War. He was on the Confederate side. They carried
him there as a worker. They cut down all the timber 'round the place
where they were to keep the Yankee gunboats from shelling them and
knocking the logs down on them. But them Yankees were sharp. They stayed
away till everything got dry as a chip. Then they come down and set all
that wood afire with their shells, and the wind seemed to be in their
favor. The Rebels had to get away from there.
"He got sick before the War closed and he had to come home. His young
master and the other folks stayed there four or five months longer. His
young master was named Tom. When Tom came home, he waited about five or
six months before he would tell them they was free. Then he said, 'You
all free as I am. You can stay here if you want or you can go. You are
free.' They all got together and told him that if he would treat them
right he wouldn't have to do no work. They would stay and do his work
and theirs too. They would work the land and he would give them their
part. I don't know just what the agreement was. I think it was about a
third. Anyway, they worked on shares. When the landlord furnished a team
usually it was halves. But when the worker furnished his own team, it
was usually two-thirds or three-fourths that the worker got. But none of
them owned teams at that time. They were just turned loose. We stayed
there with them people a good while. I don't know just how long, but it
was several years.
Catching a Hog
"One time a slave went to steal a hog. I don't know the name of the man;
I just hear my father tell what happened, and I'm repeating it. It was a
great big hog and kind of wild. His plan to catch the hog was to climb a
tree and carry a yeer of corn up the tree and at the same time he'd
carry a long rope. He had put a running noose in the end of the rope and
laid it on the ground and shelled the corn into the ring. He had the
other end of the rope tied around himself; he was up the tree. About the
time he got the noose pulled up around the hog so that he could tighten
up on it, he dropped his hat and scared the hog. The hog didn't know he
was around until the hat fell, and the falling of the hat scared it so
that it made a big jump and ran a little ways off. That jerked the man
out of the tree. Him falling scared the hog a second time and got him to
running right. He was a big stout hog, and the man's weight didn't hold
him back much. The man didn't know what to do to stop the hog. The hog
was running draggin' him along, snatching him over logs. There was
nothin' else he could do, so he tried prayer. But the hog didn't stop.
Seemed like even the Lord couldn't stop him. Then he questioned the
Lord; he said, 'Lawd, what sawt [HW: sort] of a Lawd is you? You can
stop the wind; you can stop the rain; you can stop the ocean; but you
can't stop this hog.'
"The hog ran till he came to a big ditch. He jumped the ditch, but the
man fell in it, and that compelled the hog to stop. The man's hollering
made somebody hear him and come and git him loose from the hog. He was
so glad to git loose, he didn't mind losing the hog and gettin'
punished. He didn't get the hog. He just got a lot of bruises. I don't
remember just how they punished him.
Ku Klux Klan
"Once after the War there was a lot of colored people at a prayer
meeting. It was in the winter and they had a fire. The Ku Klux come up.
They just stood outside the door, but the people thought they were
coming in and they got scared. They didn't know hardly how to get out.
One man got a big shovelful of hot coals and ashes out of the fireplace
and threw it out over them, and while they was dusting off the ashes and
coals, the niggers all got away.
Patrollers
"I remember my father telling tales about the patrollers, but I can't
remember them just now. There was an old song about them. Part of it
went like this:
'Run, nigger, run
The pateroles'll get you.
That nigger run
That nigger flew
That nigger bust
His Sunday shoe.
Run, nigger, run
The pateroles'll get you.'
That's all I know of that. There is more to it. I used to hear the boys
sing it, and I used to hear 'em pick it out on the banjo and the guitar.
Old Massa Goes 'Way
"Old massa went off one time and left the niggers. He told 'em that he
was goin' to New York. He jus' wanted to see what they would do if they
thought he was away. The niggers couldn't call the name New York, and
they said, 'Old massa's gone to PhilameYawk.'
"They went in the pantry and got everything they wanted to eat. And they
had a big feast. While they were feasting, the old man came in disguised
as a tramp--face smutty and clothes all dirty and raggedy. They couldn't
tell who he was. He walked up just as though he wanted to eat and begged
the boys for something to eat. The boys said to him, 'Stan' back, you
shabby rascal, you; if'n they's anything left, you get some; if'n
they ain't none left, you get none. This is our time. Old massa done
gone to PhilameYawk and we're having a big time.'
"After they were through, they did give him a little something but they
still didn't know him. I never did learn the details about what happened
after they found out who the tramp was. My father told me about it.
Whipping a Slave
"I heard my father say his old master give him two licks with a whip
once. Him and another man had been off and they came in. Master drove up
in a double surrey. He had been to town and had bought the boys a pair
of boots apiece. He told them as he got out of the surrey to take his
horses out and feed them. My father's friend was there with him and he
said: 'Le's get our boots before we feed the horses.' After that the
master walked out on the porch and he had on crying boots. The horses
heard them squeaking and they nickered.
"Master said, 'Henry, I thought I told you to feed them horses. Henry
was so taken aback that he couldn't say a thing. Henry was my father,
you know. Master went and got his cowhide. He said, 'Are you going to
obey my orders?' About the time he said that, he hit my father twice
with the cowhide, and my father said, 'Oh pray, master, oh pray,' and he
let him go. He beat the other fellow pretty bad because he told him to
'Le's get the boots first.'
"Old master would get drunk sometimes and get on the niggers and beat
them up. He would have them stark naked and would be beating them. Then
old missis would come right out there and stop him. She would say, 'I
didn't come all the way here from North Carolina to have my niggers beat
up for nothin'.' She'd take hold of the cowhide, and he would have to
quit. My father had both her picture and the old man's.
Prayer
"I can remember how my mother used to pray out in the field. We'd be
picking cotton. She would go off out there in the ditch a little ways.
It wouldn't be far, and I would listen to her. She would say to me:
'Pray, son,' and I would say, 'Mother, I don't know how to pray,' and
she would say, 'Well, just say Lord have mercy.' That gave me religious
inclinations. I cultivated religion from that time on. I would try to
pray and finally I learned. One day I was out in the field and it was
pouring down rain, and I was standing up with tears in my eyes trying to
pray as she taught me to. We weren't picking cotton then. I was just
walking out. My mother was dead. I would be walking out and whenever I
would get the notion I would stop right there and go to praying.
"In slave times, they would have a prayer meeting out in some of the
places and they would turn a pot down out in front of the door. It would
be on a stick or something and raised up a short distance from the
ground so that it wouldn't set flat on the ground. It seems that that
would catch the sound and keep it right around there. They would sing
that old song:
'We will camp awhile in the wilderness
And then I'm going home.'
I don't know any more of the words of that song.
Early Schooling
"I started to school when I was about six or seven years old. I didn't
get to school regular because my father had plenty of work and he had a
habit of taking me out to help him when he needed me in his work.
"My first teacher was a white man named Jones. I don't remember his
first name. He was a northerner and a Republican. He taught in the
public school with us. His boy, John, and his girl, Louisa, went to the
same school, and were in classes with us. The kids would beat them up
sometimes but he didn't cut up about it. He was pretty good man.
"After him, I had a colored man named M.E. Davis as a teacher. He would
say to my father, 'Henry, that is a bright boy; he will be a credit to
you if you will keep him at school and give him a chance. Don't make him
lose so much time.' My father would say, 'Yes, that is right.' But as
soon as another job came up, he would keep me out again.
"I soon got so my learning was a help to him in his work. Whenever any
figuring was to be done, I had to do it if it was done right. He never
had a chance to get any schooling and he couldn't figure well. So they
used to beat him out of plenty when he would work for them. One day we
had picked cotton for a white man and when the time came to pay off, the
man paid father, but I noticed that he didn't give him all he should
have. I didn't say anything while we was standing there but after we got
away I said, 'Papa, he didn't give you the right money.'
"Papa said, 'How much should he have given me?'
"I told him, and he said to me, 'Will you say that to him?'
"I said, 'Yes, papa.'
"He turned 'round and we went on back to the place and pa said, 'My boy
says you didn't pay me all that was comin' to me.'
"The white man turned to me at once and said, 'How much was coming to
him?'
"I told him.
"He said, 'What makes you think that?'
"I said, 'We picked so many pounds of cotton at so much per hundred
pounds, and that would amount to so many dollars and so many cents.'
"When I said that, he fell over on the ground and like to killed his
self laughing. He counted out the right money to my father and said,
'Henry, you better watch that little skinny-eyed nigger; he knows
something.'
Present Support
"I don't got anything from the government. I live by what little I make
at odd jobs."
Note: In this interview this man used correct English most of the time
and the interview is given in his own words. Lapses into dialect will be
noticed.
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