me for a bounty. I been talkin' to
Kitty--all I remembers her name Kitty. She been down there at the stream
washin'. Some children come told me Kitty say come on. She hung out the
clothes. I lit out over the fence and through the field with Kitty and
went to Conniars. She left me at the railroad track and went on down the
road by myself to Lithonia. I walked all night. I met my brother not
long after Kitty left me. He was on a wagon. He knowed me and took me up
with him to Mr. Jake Chup's Jr. He was the young man. Then Chups fed me
till he come back and took me to mammy. Master Chups sold her to Dr.
Reygans. I hadn't seen her since I was three years old. She knowed me.
My brother knowed me soon as ever he saw me. I might a not knowed them
in a gatherin' but I hadn't forgot them. They hear back and forth where
I be but they never could get to see me. I lived with my folks till I
married.

"The first man I lived with ten years. The next one I lived with fifty
years and some days over. He died. They both died. The man I married was
a preacher. We farmed long with his preachin'. We paid $500.00 for forty
acres of this bottom land. Cleared it out. I broke myself plum down and
it got mortgaged. The Planters Bank at Forrest City took it over. I
ain't had nothin' since. I ain't got no home. I ain't had nothin' since
then. My husband died two years ago and I has a hard time.

"My folks was livin' in Decatur, Georgia when the Ku Klux was ragin'. We
sure was scared of em. Mighty nigh to death. When freedom come on the
niggers had to start up their churches. They had nigger preachers.
Sometimes a white preacher would come talk to us. When the niggers be
havin' preachin' here come the Ku Klux and run em clear out. If they
hear least thing nigger preacher say they whoop him. They whooped
several. They sure had to be mighty particular what they said in the
preachin'. They made some of the nigger preachers dance. There wasn't no
use of that and they knowed it. They must of had plenty fun. They rode
the country every night for I don't know how long and that all niggers
talked bout.

"My mammy had eleven children. I had one boy. He died a baby.

"My pa come and brought his family in 1873. He come with a gang. They
didn't allow white men to take em off so a white man come and stay round
shy and get nigger man to work up a gang. We all come on a train to
Memphis, then we got on a big boat. No, ma'am, we didn't come on no
freight train.