fur my water bill. Ah
owes $3.80 and had to give my deeds to my house to a lady to pay the
water bill fur me and it worries me 'cause Ah ain't got no money to pay
it, fur this is all Ah got and Ah hates to loose my house. Ah wisht it
wuz some way to pay it. Ah ain't been able to do fur mahse'f in many
years now, and has to depend on what others gives me.

"Tell you mo' about the ole times? Lawd, honey, times has changed so
frum when Ah was young. You don't hear of haints as you did when I
growed up. The Lawd had to show His work in miracles 'cause we didn't
have learnin' in them days as they has now. And you may not believe it
but them things happened. Ah knows a old man what died, and after his
death he would come to our house where he always cut wood, and at night
we could hear a chain bein' drug along in the yard, jest as if a big
log-chain wuz bein' pulled by somebody. It would drag on up to the
woodpile and stop, then we could hear the thump-thump of the ax on the
wood. The woodpile was near the chimney and it would chop-chop on, then
stop and we could hear the chain bein' drug back the way it come. This
went on fur several nights until my father got tired and one night after
he heard it so long, the chop-chop, papa got mad and hollered at the
haint, 'G---- D---- you, go to hell!!!' and that spirit went off and
never did come back!

"We'd always know somebody wuz goin' to die when we heard a owl come to
a house and start screechin'. We always said, 'somebody is gwine to
die!' Honey, you don't hear it now and it's good you don't fur it would
skeer you to death nearly. It sounded so mo'nful like and we'd put the
poker or the shovel in the fire and that always run him away; it burned
his tongue out and he couldn't holler no more. If they'd let us go out
lak we always wanted to, Ah don't 'spects we'd a-done it, 'cause we wuz
too skeered. Lawdy, chile, them wuz tryin' days. Ah sho is glad God let
me live to see these 'uns.

"Ah tried to git the ole-age pension fur Ah sho'ly needed it and wuz
'titled to it too. Sho wuz. But that visitor jest wouldn't let me go
through. She acted lak that money belonged to her. Ah 'plied when it
first come out and shoulda been one of the first to get one. Ah worried
powerful much at first fur Ah felt how much better off Ah'd be. Ah
wouldn't be so dependent lak Ah'm is now. Ah 'spects you know that
'oman. She is a big black 'oman--wuz named Smith at first befo' she
married. She is a Joh