the day Lucinda cussed 'em out told her he was Lucinda's great
uncle. She said that everybody called him the greatest root worker in
South Carolina. Then my sister thought 'bout how this man had come to
her house and asked for water every time. He wouldn't ever let her get
the water for him, he always went to the pump and got it hisself. After
he had pumped it off real cool he would always offer to get a bucket
full for her. She didn't think nothin' 'bout it and she would let him
fill her bucket. That's how he got her.

"She stayed sick a long time and Mamie stayed by her bed 'til she died.
I noticed Mamie wipin' her mouth every few minutes, so one day I asked
her what did she keep wipin' from my sister's mouth. She told me it
wasn't nothin' but spit. But I had got very anxious to know so I stood
by her head myself. Finally I seed what it was. Small spiders came
crawlin' out of her mouth and nose. Mamie thought it would skeer me,
that's why she didn't want me to know.

"That happened on Tuesday and that Friday when she died a small snake
come out of her forehead and stood straight up and stuck his tongue out
at us. A old man who was sittin' there with us caught the snake, put him
in a bottle, and kept him 'bout two weeks before he died.

"Don't think Lucinda didn't have pore Mamie conjured too. Mamie took
sick just one month after my sister died. After she found out the
doctors couldn't do her no good, she got a real good root worker to
doctor on her. He got her up and she stayed up for nearly a year before
Lucinda doubled the dose. That time pore Mamie couldn't git up. She
suffered and suffered before she died. But Lucinda got her pay for all
of it. When Mamie died Lucinda come to see her and said 'some folks was
better off dead anyhow'. Mamie's daughter started to jump on her but
some of the old folks wouldn't let her.

"Lucinda went a long time, but when she fell she sho' fell hard. She
almost went crazy. She stayed sick as long as my sister and Mamie put
together. She got so bad off 'til nobody couldn't even go in her house.
Everybody said she was reapin' what she sowed. She wouldn't even let her
own chillun come in the house. After she got so sick she couldn't get
off the bed she would cuss 'em and yell to the top of her voice 'til
they left. Nobody didn't feel sorry for her 'cause they knowed she had
done too much devilment.

"Just 'fore she died, Lucinda was so sick and everybody was talkin'
'bout it was su