“I farmed all my life till fifteen years ago I started trucking here in Helena.  I gets six dollars assistance from the Sociable Welfare and some little helpouts as I calls it—­rice and potatoes and apples.  I got one boy fifty-five years old if he be living.  I haven’t seen him since 1916.  He left and went to Chicago.  I got a girl in St. Louis.  I got a girl here in Helena.  I jus’ been up to see her.  I had nine children.  I been married twice.  I lived with my first wife thirteen years and seven months.  She died.  I lived with my second wife forty years and some over—­several weeks.  She died.

“I was a small boy when the Civil War broke out.  Once I got a awful scare.  I was perched up on a post.  The Yankees come up back of the house and to my back.  I seen them.  I yelled out, ‘Yonder come Yankees.’  They come on cussing me.  Aunt Ruthie got me under my arms and took me to Miss Fannie Cotton.  We lived in part of their house.  Walter (white) and me slept together.  Mother cooked.  Aunt Ruthie was a field hand.  Aunt Adeline must have been a field hand too.  She hung herself on a black jack tree on the other side of the pool.  It was a pool for ducks and stock.

“She hung herself to keep from getting a whooping.  Mother raised (reared) her boy.  She told mother she would kill herself before she would be whooped.  I never heard what she was to be whooped for.  She thought she would be whooped.  She took a rope and tied it to a limb and to her neck and then jumped.  Her toes barely touched the ground.  They buried her in the cemetery on the old Ed Cotton place.  I never seen her buried.  Aunt Ruthie’s grave was the first open grave I ever seen.  Aunt Mary was papa’s sister.  She was the oldest.

“I would say anything to the Yankees and hang and hide in Miss Fannie’s dress.  She wore long big skirts.  I hung about her.  Grandma raised me on a bottle so mother could nurse Walter (white).  There was something wrong wid Miss Fannie.  We colored children et out of trays.  They hewed them out of small logs.  Seven or eight et together.  We had our little cups.  Grandma had a cup for my water.  We et with spoons.  It would hold a peck of something to eat.  I nursed my mother four weeks and then mama raised Walter and grandma raised me.  Walter et out of our tray many and many a time.  Mother had good teeth and she chewed for us both.  Henry was younger than Walter.  They was the only two children Miss Fannie had.  Grandma washed out our tray soon as ever we quit eating.  She’d put the bread in, then pour the meat and vegetables over it.  It was good.

“Did you ever hear of Walter Cotton, a cancer doctor?  That was him.  He may be dead now.  Me and him caused Aunt Sue to get a whooping.  They had a little pear tree down twix the house and the spring.  Walter knocked one of the sugar pears off and cut it in halves.  We et it.  Mr. Ed asked ’bout it.  Walter told her Aunt Sue pulled it.  She didn’t come by the tree.  He whooped her her declaring all the time she never pulled it nor never seen it.  I was scared then to tell on Walter.  I hope eat it.  Aunt Sue had grown children.