s Mappin, why is your name
Gullins?"

"Well, Miss, I'll have to digress a little to give you the history of
the name. Every effect has a cause you know, and after I got old enough
to reason things out, I wondered too why my name was Gullins, so I did
some investigating and the story goes like this.

"When I was a very small boy back before the war, a circus came to town.
I remember the clown, whose name was Gullins. My father, John Mappin,
was so much like the clown in his ways and sayings, that afterwards
everyone started calling him Gullins. This soon became a sort of
nickname. Some years after when slaves were freed, they were all
registered, most of them taking the family name of their owners. When
time came for my father to register, the Registrar says, "John, what
name are you going to register under, Mappin or Gullins? Everyone calls
you Gullins, and they will always call you Gullins. My father, after
thinking for a moment said, "just put down Gullins." By this time I was
beginning to think that Uncle Dave was pretty much of a clown himself.

"Now Uncle Dave tell me your early impressions of your mother and
father."

"Miss, my mother was one of the best women God ever made. Back in
slavery time I recall the trundle bed that we children slept on. In the
day it was pushed under the big bed, and at night it was pulled out for
us to sleep on. All through cold, bitter winter nights, I remember my
mother getting up often to see about us and to keep the cover tucked in.
She thought us sound asleep, and I pretended I was asleep while
listening to her prayers. She would bend down over the bed and
stretching her arms so as to take us all in, she prayed with all her
soul to God to help her bring up her children right. Don't think now
that she let God do it all; she helped God, bless your life, by keeping
a switch right at hand."

"Uncle Dave you didn't have to be chastised, did you?"

"I got two or three whippings every day. You see my mother didn't let
God do it all. You know if you spare the rod you spoil the child, and
that switch stimulated, regulated, persuaded and strengthened my memory,
and went a long way toward making me do the things my mother told me to
do. Hurrah for my mother! God bless her memory!"

"What about your father, Uncle Dave?"

"My father was a good man; he backed my mother in her efforts to bring
us up right. He told me many a time, 'Boy, you need two or three
killings every day!'"

"Unc