n, and he tried, and then the white
preacher Reverend Dennison tried and old man Gorman tried. He was a
infidel, but that didn't do no good.

By that time it was getting dark, and every nigger in a square mile
was there, looking on and acting scared. Me and my partner who was a
little bit cripple but mighty smart come up to see what all the rumpus
was about, and we was jest the age to do anything.

He whispered to me to let him start it off and then me finish it while
he got a head running start. I ast him what he talking about.

Then he fooled round the house and got a little ball of cotton and
soaked it in kerosene from a lamp. It was a brass lamp with a hole and
a stopper in the side of the bowl. Wonder he didn't burn his fool head
off! Then he sidle up close and stuck dat cotton 'tween old Bab's
toes. Old Bab had the biggest feet I ever see, too.

'Bout that time I lit a corn shuck in de lamp and run out in de yard
and stuck it to de cotton and jest kept right on running!

My partner had a big start but I catch up wid him and we lay down in
de bresh and listened to everybody hollering and old Bab hollering
louder than anybody. Old Bab moved away after that.

All that foolishness happen after the War, but before de War while I
was a little boy they wasn't much foolishness went on I warrant you.

I was born on de 15th of August in 1856, and belonged to Mister
Addison Pyles. He lived in town, in Jackson, Tennessee, and was a old
man when de War broke. He had a nephew named Irvin T. Pyles he raised
from a baby, and Mister Irvin kept a store at de corner of de roads at
our plantation. The plantation covered about 300 or 400 acres I
reckon, and they had about 25 slaves counting de children.

The plantation was about 9 miles north of Red Mound, close to
Lexington, Tennessee, and about a mile and a half from Parker's
Crossroads where they had a big battle in de War.

They wasn't no white overseer on the place, except Mister Irvin, and
he stayed in de store or in town and didn't bother about the farm
work. We had a Negro overlooker who was my stepdaddy. His name was
Jordan, and he run away wid de Yankees about de middle of de War and
was in a Negro Yankee regiment. After he left we jest worked on as
usual because we was afraid not to. Several of de men got away like
that but he was de only one that got in de army.

They was a big house in de middle of de place and a settlement of
Negro cabins behind and around it.