flies off the table. I had a fly brush. I
would eat out of Bob's and Fannie's plates. Miss Sue say, 'Bell, I'm
going to whoop you.' I say, 'Miss Sue, please don't, I'm hungry too.'
She say, 'You stop playing and eat first next time.' Then she'd put some
more on their plates. We sat on a bench at the table. We et the same the
white folks did all cooked up together.

"One time Dr. Buntin got awful mad. The dogs found some whiskey in a
cave one of his slaves had hid there. They would steal and hide it in a
cave. He got a beating and they washed it in salt water to keep them
from getting sore and stiff.

"Some folks kept dogs trained to hunt runaway niggers. They was fat, and
you better not hit one or hurt it if it did bite or you would git a
awful beating.

"Master Alex was a legislator. He had to leave when the Yankees come
through. They killed all the legislators. I loved him. He run a store
and we three children went to the store to see him nearly every day. He
took us all three on his knees at the some time. I loved him. When he
was gone, I said, 'Miss Sue, where is Master Alex?' She say, 'Maybe he
be back pretty soon.' While he was gone they had a battle in a little
skirt of woods close by. We hung to Miss Sue's skirt tail. I seen the
Yankees run by on horses and some walking. Mr. Jordan, a southern
soldier, was shot in his ribs. Mr. Buford was shot in his knee. Some of
the other southern soldiers drug them up to our house. Miss Sue nursed
them. I think they got well and went home.

"Three days before Master Alex left they sent all the stock off and put
the turkeys and geese under the house, and chickens too. It was dark so
they kept pretty quiet. When the Yankees got there they stripped the
smoke-house. We had a lots of meat and they busted the storehouse open
and strowed (strewed) meat and flour all along the road. They hired
Mammy (Charlotte) to cook a big meal for them. She told the man she was
'fraid Miss Sue whoop her. He said, 'Whooping time near 'bout out.' He
asked her 'bout some chickens but she wasn't goin' to tell him 'cause it
was her living too for them to waste up. They never found the geese,
turkeys, and chickens. They rambled all through the house looking for
Master Alex and went through every drawer and closet upstairs and down.
It was scandalous. They had Miss Sue walking and crying and us three
children clinging to her skirt tail scared to death and crying too. When
they left, the big lieutenan