and root workers are much more skillful
now than formerly. "Folks don't kill you like they used to kill you.
They used to put most anythin' in you, but now they got so wise or
afraid that somebody will know zactly what killed you, 'til they do it
slick as a eel.

"Once a man named John tried to go with a girl but her step-pa, Willie,
run him away from the house just like he mought be a dog, so John made
it up in his mind to conjure Willie. He went to the spring and planted
somethin' in the mouth of it, and when Willie went there the next day to
get a drink he got the stuff in the water. A little while after he drunk
the water he started gettin' sick. He tried to stay up but every day he
got wuss and wuss 'til he got flat down in bed.

"In a few days somethin' started growin' in his throat. Every time they
tried to give him soup or anythin' to eat, somethin' would come crawlin'
up in his throat and choke him. That was what he had drunk in the
spring, and he couldn't eat nothin' or drink nothin'. Finally he got so
bad off he claimed somethin' was chokin' him to death, and so his wife
sont off and got a fortune teller. This fortune teller said it was a
turtle in his throat. He 'scribed the man that had conjured Willie but
everybody knowed John had done it 'fore the fortune teller told us. It
warn't long after that 'fore Willie was dead. That turtle come up in his
throat and choked him to death.

"Some folk don't believe me, but I ain't tellin' no tale 'bout it. I
have asked root workers to tell me how they does these things, and one
told me that it was easy for folks to put snakes, frogs, turtles,
spiders, or most anythin' that you couldn't live with crawlin' and
eatin' on the inside of you. He said these things was killed and put up
to dry and then beat up into dust like. If any of this dust is put in
somethin' you have to eat or drink, these things will come alive like
they was eggs hatchin' in you. Then the more they grow, the worse off
you get.

"My aun't son had took a girl away from another man who was going with
her too. As soon as this man heard they was going to marry, he started
studyin' some way to stop it. So he went to a root worker and got
somethin' and then went to this girl's house one night when he knew my
cousin was there. Finally when he got ready to leave, he was smart
enough to get my cousin to take a drink with him.

"That next mornin' the boy was feelin' a little bad, but he never paid
too much