Tanny Hill
From:
More Arkansas
Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson
Person interviewed: Tanny Hill
Brinkley, Arkansas
Age: 56? No record of age
"'Uncle Solomon' we all called him but he wasn't no kin to us, he was
the funniest old man I ever heard tell of. He was a slave. He belong to
Sorrel Crockell I heard him say. He didn't go to no war.
"When the War ended he was a fisherman in Arkansas. He used to tie his
own self to a tree keep the fish from pulling him in the river. He
caught big fish in the early times. He'd come to our house when I was
nothing but a child and bring 'nough fish for all our supper. Ma would
cook 'em. Pa would help him scale 'em. We'd love to see him come. He
lived thater way from house to house.
"One time he made me mad. I never had no more use for him. We'd give him
tomatoes and onions. He told us to go bring him thater watermelon out of
the garden. He cut and eat it before us. Never give us a bite. He was
saying, 'You goiner get your back and belly beat black and blue.' I
didn't know what he was saying. Grandma found the watermelon was gone. I
owned up to it. Ma got switches and whooped us. I was singing what he
was saying. Grandma tole me what he meant. From that on we had no more
of his good fish."
Interviewer's Comment
Large, medium black.
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Elizabeth Hines
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Rebecca Brown Hill
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