2.	40


	~I farmed ŕll my lite till fifteen years ago I started trucking here ii~. Helena, I gets six dollars assistance from the Sociable Welfare and some little helpouts as I calls it-—rice and potatoes and apples. I got one boy fifty-five years old if he be living. I haven‘t seen him since 1916. He left and went to Chicago. I got a girl in St. Louis. I got a girl here in Helena. I jus‘ been up to see her. I had nine children. I been married twice. I lived with my first wife thirteen years and seven months. She died. I lived with my second wife forty years and some over--several weeks. She died.

	nI was a small boy when the Civil War broke out. Once I got a awful scare. I was perched up on a post. The Zankees come up back of the house and to my back. I seen them. I yelled out, ‘Yonder ccme Yankees.‘ They come on cussing me • Aunt Ruthie got me under my arms and took ~e to Mi sa Fannie Cotton. We lived in part of their house. Walter (white) and me slept together. Mother cooked. ~Au.nt Ruthie was a field hand. Aunt Adeline must have been a field hand too. She hung herself on a black jack tree on the other side of the pool. It was a pool for ducks and stock. ~ ~

	“She hung herself to keep from getting a whooping. Moth~r raised (reared) her boy. She told mother she would kill herself before she would be whooped. I never heard what she v~as to be whooped for. She thought she would be whooped. She took a rope and tied it to a limb and to her neck and then jumped. Her toes barely touched the ground. They buried her in the cemetery on the old Ed Cotton place . . I never seen her buried. Aunt Ru‘ s grave was the first open grave I ever seen. Aunt Mary was papa‘ s sister. She was the oldest~

	~I would say anything to the Yaxikees and hang and hide in Misa Fannie ‚ s dress. She wore long big skirts. I hung about her. Grandma raised me on a bottle so mother could nurse Walter (white ) • There was something wrong