't in church over fifteen
minutes 'fore she had a stroke. Somebody took a car and carried her
home. She couldn't even speak for more than a week. The doctor come and
'xamined her, but he said he didn't see nothin' that would cause her to
have a stroke. He treated her for 'bout two weeks but she didn't get no
better. A friend told us to try a root worker. She said she knowed one
that was good on such things. Us was afraid at first, but after the
three doctors us had tried didn't seem to do her no good, us decided to
get the root worker.

"The root worker come that Wednesday mornin' and looked at her, but he
never touched her. He told us she had been hurt, but he could have her
on her feet in 'bout a week or ten days. He didn't give her no medicine,
and he never come back 'til after she was up and walkin' 'round. She got
up in 'bout seven days, and started talkin' earlier than that. The root
worker told her she had got conjured by puttin' her hands on somethin'
and eatin' without washin' 'em.

"She got along fine for 'bout three years, 'til one day she got home
from work and found her house open. She thought her son had gone out and
forgot to lock the door. When he come home he told her he had not been
back since he left that mornin'. She knowed she didn't forget to lock
it, so she guessed somebody had jus 'bout gone in through the window and
come out the door. But it was too late then 'cause she had et what was
left in the house and had drunk some water.

"That night she had her second stroke. Us sent for the same man who had
got her up before, but he said he doubted gettin' her up this time
'cause the person had made a good job of it by puttin' somethin' in her
water and t'eat. He treated her, and she got strong enough to sit up in
the house, but she soon had the third stroke and then he give her up.
She died 'bout two months later.

"I know you don't know how folks can really conjure you. I didn't at one
time, but I sho' learnt. Everytime somebody gets sick it ain't natchel
sickness. I have seed folks die with what the doctors called
consumption, and yet they didn't have it. I have seed people die with
heart trouble, and they didn't have it. Folks is havin' more strokes now
than ever but they ain't natchel. I have seed folks fixed so they would
bellow like a cow when they die, and I have seed 'em fixed so you have
to tie them down in bed to die. I've got so I hardly trust anybody."

Estella Jones thinks conjurers