at once a cloud no
bigger than a small spot came up, and it grew fast, and it thundered and
lightened as if the world were coming to an end, and the rain just came
down in great sheets. And when it got so they could go to the other end
of the field, that trough was filled with water and every baby in it was
floating 'round in the water drownded. They never got nary a lick of
labor and nary a red penny for ary one of them babies."

Experiences just after the War

"Mother had been a cook and she just kept on cooking, for the same
people. My father he went to farming."

Patrollers

"My father said that the patrollers would run you and ketch you and
whip you if you didn't have a pass, when you was away from the
pass.[HW: place?] But they didn't bother you if you had a pass. The
patrollers were mean white people who called themselves making the
niggers stay home. I think they were hired. They called their selves
making the niggers stay home. They went all through the community
looking for people, and whipping them when they'd leave home without a
pass. They said you wasn't submissive when you left home without a pass.
They hounded Lucy to death. She wouldn't let 'em get her, and she
wouldn't let 'em get her quarter."

Ku Klux Klan

"I have seen the Ku Klux. I have washed their regalia and ironed it for
them. They wouldn't let just anybody wash and iron it because they
couldn't do it right. My son's wife had a job washing and ironing for
them and I used to go down and help her. I never did take a job of any
kind myself because my husband didn't let me. The regalia was white.
They were made near like these singing robes the church choirs have. But
they were long--come way down to the shoe tops. That was along in the
nineties,--about 1890. It was when they revived the Ku Klux the last
time before the World War. In the old days the patrollers used to whip
them for being out without a pass but the Ku Klux used to whip them for
disorderly living.

"Way back yonder when I was in Alabama, too, I can remember the Ku Klux
riding. I was a little child then. The Republicans and Democrats were at
war with each other then and they was killing everybody. My brother was
one of them they run. He could come out in the daytime, but in the night
he would have to hide. They never got him. He dodged them. That was
'round in 1874. In 1875, him and my uncle left Alabama and went to
Louisiana. They called him a stump speaker. They wa