3.	44



	“There was an old white man used to ccme out and teach papa how to read the Bible.

	“Papa said ‚ ‘Am ‚ t you ‚ traid they‘ 11 kill you if they see y‘

	“The old man said, ‘No; they don‘t know what I‘m doing, and don‘t you tell ‘eIn. If you do, they will kill me.‘


Signa of the War

	“One night my father called me outside and told me that he saw the elements opened up and 8oldiers fighting in the heavens.

	R ‘Don‘t you see them, honey?‘ he said; but I couldn‘t see them. And

he said there was going to be a war,

	“I went out and told it. The white people said they ought to take him out and beat him and make him hush his mouth. Because if they got such talk going ‘round among the colored people, they wouldn‘t be able to do nothin‘ with them. Dr. Polk‘s wife‘s father, Old Man Woods, used to say that the niggers weren ‚ t goin ‚ to be free • He said that God had showed that to him.


Mean Masters

	“Dr. Polk and his son, the one my mother beat up and left lying on the ground, were two mean men. When the slaves didn‘t pick enough cotton for them, they would take them down the field, and turn up their clothes, till they was naked, and beat them nearly to death.

	“Mother was a breeder. While she did that weaving, she had children. fast. One day, Tcm Polk hit my mother. That was before she ran away. He hit her because she didn‘t pick the required amount of cotton. When there was nothin‘ to do at the loom, mother had to go in the field, you know.