"Ole Massa had three boys at went off to war—Dey wuz Ab, an’ Bob’ an’ Jack. We nebber seed no fightin’ roun’ our way but sometime we heard de cannon fum Cape. One time dey wuz lotsa sojers cum pass our place an dey had lotsa wagons an’ things. Ah ain’t nebber seed so many men an’ I’se plum scared to death, but dey nebber bother none.
"We had big fields o’ wheat an cahn an sich, but mah mammy didden work in de fiel’, she spin an she weave. Ah could spin too. Ah’s fill de quills and Ah’d hep her thread de loom. De loom stood out on de big porch and Ah kin jes see her sittin dar. She’d push de thread through tuh me an’ den Ah’d ketch it and pull it through an han it back tuh her.
"When de war wuz over, Ole Massa call tuh me an’ he say ’Clara, you know de war is over’—an Ah say ’Whar wuz it?’ Ah nebber know’d nuthin ’bout de war.
"No’m, Ah don’ know nuthin ’bout ghosts an sich like, but when Ah dies Ah specks to go to Hebbin an’ Lawd! Ah’s gonna sit all day an’ shout an’ sing, and clap mah han’s an’ stomp mah feet! Oh! Lawd! Dat’s gonna be a happy time."
Clara McNeely Harrell, probably 80 or 82 years old lives in hollow—no street number west from Washington School, Cape Girardeau, Mo.
*Interview with Joe Higgerson,* *Sedalia, Missouri.* *(Written by Geo. K. Bartlett, Kansas City,* *from F.C. of Kathleen Williams.)
*Living at 410 West Pettis Street, Sedalia, is Joseph Higgerson, a pensioned Negro soldier of the Civil War, who can look back through the long vista of years and visualize slave life in Missouri, when the institution of slavery was at its most thriving period.
He was born a slave on a farm near Boonville, Missouri, in 1845 if his claim of being 92 years old in the summer of 1937, is correct.
He is somewhat bent and withered and his appearance of great age is accentuated by white patriarchal whiskers below the chin, while his cheeks are clean shaven; a style much in vogue during the life time of Horace Greeley.
His home, a little, four room, frame cottage, with its tiny front porch set close against the picket fence enclosing the lot, mirrors somewhat the deterioration age has placed upon its occupant. Both house and fence are weather beaten, gray from age and lack of paint.