eally a shame the way that pore man had
to hide about just to keep from bein' beat to death 'bout nothin'. Josh
said the first day he left he went in the woods and looked and looked
for a place to hide. Later he saw a tree that the wind had blowed the
top off and left 'bout ten feet standin'. This was rather a big tree and
all of the insides had rotted out. I reckon you have seen trees like
that. Well that's the way this one was. So Josh climbed up this tree and
got down inside of it. He didn't know there was nothin' down in that
tree, but there was some little baby bears in there. Then there he was
down there with no way to come out, and knowin' all the time that the
mama bear was comin' back. So he thought and thought and thought. After
while he thought 'bout a knife he had in his pocket. You see he couldn't
climb out of the tree, it was too tall. When he heard the bear climbin'
up the tree he opened his knife. Have you ever seen a bear comin' down a
tree? Well he comes down backwards. So when this bear started down
inside of the tree he went down backwards, and Josh had his knife open
and just caught him by the tail and begin stickin' him with the knife.
That's the way Josh got out of that tree. When he stuck the bear with
the knife the bear went back up the tree, and that pulled Josh up. And
when the bear got to the top of the tree Josh caught a hold of the tree
and pulled himself on out, but the bear fell and broke his neck. Well
Josh had to find him somewhere else to hide. In them times there was big
caves in the woods, not only the woods but all over the country, and
that's where pore Josh hid all while he was away. Josh stayed there in
that cave a long time then he come on back home. He didn't get a
whippin' either."

Childhood memories were recalled by an old woman who said: "When I was
about nine years old, for about six months, I slept on a crocus bag
sheet in order to get up and nurse the babies when they cried. Do you
see this finger? You wonder why its broke? Well one night the babies
cried and I didn't wake up right away to 'tend to 'em and my mistess
jumped out of bed, grabbed the piece of iron that was used to push up
the fire and began beatin' me with it. That's the night this finger got
broke, she hit me on it. I have two more fingers she broke beatin' me at
diff'unt times. She made me break this leg too. You see they would put
the women in stocks and beat 'em whenever they done somethin' wrong.
That'