was particular with the children, both black and white then. They
put the children to bed by sundown and they would set around the fire
and talk. She raised Elnora and the baby Altona after mother got killed.
She give them good clothes and good to eat. Their papa took the boy. He
left after mother got killed. We took a pride in the place like it was
our own. We didn't know but what it was our very own.

"We had a acre in garden. We raised everything. We had three or four
thousand pounds of meat and three cribs of corn. I ketched it when I
left them. I made thirty-three crops in my life. My children all grown
and gone. My son-in-law died. He had dropsy eight months. He had a dead
liver. I've wanted since he died. I've had a hard time since he died. He
was a worker and so good to us all.

"Mother worked with a white woman. Mother was full-blood Indian herself.
The woman's husband got to dealing with his daughter. She had three
babies in all. They said they put them up in the ceiling, up in a loft.
This old man got mad with Bob Young and burnt his gin. Mother seen him
slipping around. They ask her but she wouldn't tell on him, for she
didn't see him set it on fire. They measured the tracks. He got scared
mother would tell on him. One night a colored man on the place come
over. Her husband was gone somewhere and hadn't got home. She was
cooking supper. They heard somebody but thought it was a pig come
around. Hogs run out all time. The step was a big limestone rock. She
opened the door and put the hot lid of the skillet on it to cool. Stood
it up sideways. Then they heard a noise at that door. It was pegged. So
she went along with the cooking. It wasn't late. He found a crack at the
side of the stick and dirt chimney, put the muzzle of the gun in there
and shot her through her heart. The man flew. She struggled to the edge
of the bed and fell. The children was asleep and I was afraid to move.
The moon come up. I couldn't get her on the bed. I put a pillow under
her head and a quilt over her, but I didn't think she was dead. The baby
cried in the night. I was so scared I put the eight-months-old baby down
under there to nurse. It nursed. She was dead then, I think now. When
four o'clock come it was daylight. The little brother said, 'I know
what's the matter, our mama's dead.' I went up to Mr. Bob Young's. He
brought the coroners. I was so young I was afraid they was going to take
us to jail. I asked little brother what they