“My father was an Indian.  ’Way back in the dark days, his mother ran away, and when she came up, that’s what she come with—­a little Indian boy.  They called him ‘Waw-hoo’che.’  His master’s name was Tom Polk.  Tom Polk was my mother’s master too.  It was Tom Polk’s boy that my mother beat up.

“My father wouldn’t let nobody beat him either.  One time when somethin’ he had did didn’t suit Tom Polk—­I don’t know what it was—­they cut sores on him that he died with.  Cut him with a raw-hide whip, you know.  And then they took salt and rubbed it into the sores.

“He told his master, ‘You have took me down and beat me for nothin’, and when you do it again, I’m goin’ to put you in the ground.’  Papa never slept in the house again after that.  They got scared and he was scared of them.  He used to sleep in the woods.

“They used to call me ‘Waw-hoo’che’ and ‘Red-Headed Indian Brat.’  I got in a fight once with my mistress’ daughter,—­on account of that.

“The children used to say to me, ‘They beat your papa yesterday.’

“And I would say to them, ‘They better not beat my papa,’ and they would go up to the house and tell it, and I would beat ’em for tellin’ it.

“There was an old white man used to come out and teach papa how to read the Bible.

“Papa said, ’Ain’t you ‘fraid they’ll kill you if they see you?’

“The old man said, ’No; they don’t know what I’m doing, and don’t you tell ’em.  If you do, they will kill me.’

Signs of the War

“One night my father called me outside and told me that he saw the elements opened up and soldiers fighting in the heavens.

“‘Don’t you see them, honey?’ he said; but I couldn’t see them.  And he said there was going to be a war.

“I went out and told it.  The white people said they ought to take him out and beat him and make him hush his mouth.  Because if they got such talk going ’round among the colored people, they wouldn’t be able to do nothin’ with them.  Dr. Polk’s wife’s father, Old Man Woods, used to say that the niggers weren’t goin’ to be free.  He said that God had showed that to him.

Mean Masters

“Dr. Polk and his son, the one my mother beat up and left lying on the ground, were two mean men.  When the slaves didn’t pick enough cotton for them, they would take them down the field, and turn up their clothes, till they was naked, and beat them nearly to death.

“Mother was a breeder.  While she did that weaving, she had children fast.  One day, Tom Polk hit my mother.  That was before she ran away.  He hit her because she didn’t pick the required amount of cotton.  When there was nothin’ to do at the loom, mother had to go in the field, you know.  I forget how much cotton they had to pick.  I don’t know how many times he hit her.  I was small.  I heard some one say, ’They got Clarisay Down, down there!’ I went to see.  And they had her down.  She was stout, and they had dug a hole in the ground to put her belly in.  I never did get over that.  I’m an old woman, but Tom Polk better not come ’round me now even.