s. That was his
first and his last. Never did he have a doctor's bill to pay or for his
master to pay,--until he died. He worked on the batteries at Vicksburg
during the War.

"Isom ran away three times. He was a field hand up to eighteen years.
The overseer wanted to whip him. Isom would help his wife in the field
because she couldn't keep up with the others and he would help her to
keep the overseer from whipping her. He'd take her beside him and row
his row and hers too. He was the fastest worker on the place. The
overseer told him to not do that. But Isom just kept on doing it anyway.
Then the overseer asked Isom for his shirt. When they whipped you them
days they didn't whip you on your clothes because they didn't want to
wear them out. Isom said he was not going to take off his shirt because
his mistress gave it to him and he wasn't going to give it to anybody
else. Then the overseer stepped 'round in front of him to stop him,
because Isom had just kept on hoeing. Isom just caught the overseer's
feet in his hoe and dumped him down on the ground and went on hoeing his
own row and his wife's. He called his hoe 'One Eyed Aggie.'

"The overseer said, 'You think you done something smart' and he went for
his master. The overseer was named Mack Hainey. His master came out the
next morning and caught Isom. Isom has often told us about it.

"'First thing I knowed, he had his feet on my hoe and he said, "Isom,
they tell me you can't be whipped." "I'd be willing to be whipped if I'd
done anything." "Huh!" said my master, "Right or wrong, if my
overseer asked you for your shirt give it to him."'

"He held a pistol on him. They made him pull off his shirt and tied him
up to a gin post. The overseer hit him five times and kept him there
till noon trying to get him to say that he would give his shirt to him
the next time. Finally Isom promised and the overseer untied him. When
the overseer untied him, Isom took his shirt in one hand and the
overseer's whip in the other and whipped him almost all the way to the
big house. Then he ran away and stayed in the woods for three or four
days until his old master sent word for him to come on back and he
wouldn't do nothing to him.

"When he went back, his master took him off the farm because he and my
father was nursed together and he didn't want Isom killed. So from that
time on, my father never worked as a field hand any more. And they put
Isom's wife as a cook. She couldn't chop