like he was going to hit her but she just stood right up to him and
never budged, and when he come close she just screamed out loud and
ran at him with her fingers stuck out straight and jabbed him in the
belly. He had a big soft belly, too, and it hurt him. He seen she
wasn't going to be afraid, and he set out to sell her. He went off on
his horse to get some men to come and bid on her and her boy, and all
us children was mighty scared about it.

They would have hangings at Fort Smith courthouse, and old Master
would take a slave there sometimes to see the hanging, and that slave
would come back and tell us all scary stories about the hanging.

One time he whipped a whole bunch of the men on account of a fight in
the quarters, and then he took them all to Fort Smith to see a
hanging. He tied them all in the wagon, and when they had seen the
hanging he asked them if they was scared of them dead men hanging up
there. They all said yes, of course, but my old uncle Nick was a bad
Negro and he said, "No, I aint a-feared of them nor nothing else in
this world", and old Master jumped on him while he was tied and beat
him with a rope, and then when they got home he tied old Nick to a
tree and took his shirt off and poured the cat-o-nine-tails to him
until he fainted away and fell over like he was dead.

I never forget seeing all that blood all over my uncle, and if I could
hate that old Indian any more I guess I would, but I hated him all I
could already I reckon.

Old Master wasn't the only hellion neither. Old Mistress just as bad,
and she took most of her wrath out hitting us children all the time.
She was afraid of the grown Negroes. Afraid of what they might do
while old Master was away, but she beat us children all the time.

She would call me, "Come here Annie!" and I wouldn't know what to do.
If I went when she called "Annie" my mammy would beat me for answering
to that name, and if I didn't go old Mistress would beat me for that.
That made me hate both of them, and I got the devil in me and I
wouldn't come to either one. My grandmammy minded the Master's yard,
and she set on the front porch all the time, and when I was called I
would run to her and she wouldn't let anybody touch me.

When I was eight years old old Mistress died, and Grandmammy told me
why old Mistress picked on me so. She told me about me being half
Mister Ned's blood. Then I knowed why Mister Ned would say, "Let her
along, she got big big bloo