would
shoot a wild hog and we would have plenty of meat to eat. The hogs ran
wild in those days, he said.

"I never saw a ghost," he said, "unless it was one night when we boys
was out with our dogs 'possum hunting. The dogs treed a possum in a
little scrubby tree. I was always a good climber; so I went up the tree
to shake the 'possum out. I shook and shook but the 'possum would not
fall out of the tree. I shook so hard that my hat fell off and I told
the niggers not to let the dogs tear my hat. That was no skunk in the
tree, 'cause we couldn't smell anything, but when I looked again at the
'possum, or whatever it was, it got bigger and bigger. I scrambled down
the tree right away, nearly falling out of it, but I wanted to get away.
The dogs acted kinda scared; yet they would run up to the tree and bark.
One old dog I had did not bark, he just hollered. We left the thing in
the tree. I don't know what it was, but it warn't no 'possum, for I'd
shook it out of the tree if it had been."

In further discussing the subject of fowls in talking among themselves,
he said that he had often noticed a rooster and some hens standing
around in the shade talking.

"The rooster will say something and the hens will listen; then answer
him back, 'yes'. One day I heard a turkey hen say, 'we are poor, we are
poor'. The old turkey gobbler said, 'well, who in the hell can help it.'
Yes sir, they talk just like we do, but 'taint everybody can understand
'em."

He said that he had fifteen children by his first wife. He remained
single for thirteen years after his wife's death, and never had any
children by his second wife.

"Do you reckon we'll ever get a pension in our old age?" he asked. "It
seems to me they would give us old fellows something to live on, for we
can't work. How can we live now-a-days? When a man has done good work
when he was able, the country ought to take care of him in his old age.

"I was a hand for hard work all my life. I was raised that way; but now,
that I can't do nothing, it looks like the state ought to take care of
me.

"My father told me when I was sitting up to a gal and I told him I was
gwinter marry her, 'Son don't you never cut that woman across the back,
for as sure as you do, that cut will be against you on Judgement Day."

"When I was laid up with the misery in my side, my feet swelled up and
busted, and I had a awful hurting in my side and back. People wanted me
to believe I had been conjure