4.	45
I torget how much cotton they had to pick. I don‘t know how many tixiies he hit her. I was small. I heard some one say, ‘They got Clarisay Down, down there ! ‚ I went to see • And they had her down. She was stout ‚ and they had dug a hole in the ground to put her belly in. I never did get over that. l‘in an old woman, but Tom Polk better not come ‘round me now even.

	“I have heard women scream and holler, ‚ Do pray ‚ massa ‚ do pray. ‚ And I was stire glad when she beat up young Tom and got away. I dn‘ t have no use ~or neither one of ‘em, and ain‘t yet.

	“It wasn‘t her work to be in the field. He made her breed and then made her work at the loom. That wasn‘ t ‘ . He would have children by a nigger woman and then have them by her daughter.

	WI went out one day and got a gun. I don‘t know whose gun it was. I said to myself, ‘If you whip my mother today, I am goin‘ to shoot you.‘ I didn‘t know where the gun belonged. My oldest sister told ins to take lt and set lt by the door, and I did it.


How Freedom Cerne

	~Dr. Polk had a fine horse. He carne riding through the field and said, ‘All you all niggers are free now. You can stay here and work for me or you can go to the next field and work.‘

	“I had an old aunt that they used to make set on a log. She jumped off that log and ran down the field to the quarters shouting and hollering.

	“The people all said, ‘Nancy‘s free; they ain‘t no ants biting her today.‘ She‘d been setting on that log one year. She wouldn‘t do no kind of work and they make her set there all day and let the ants bite her.