2,	19



À dreadful storm was goin‘ on. I was under the bed and I heard the thunder bolt and the crash and the ~all~ I heard mama scream. I crawled out I‘rcm under the bed and they had grandma laid out in the middle of the floorq Mnina said ‚ ~ Child ‚ all the friend you got in the world is ‘ Early Hurt was standin‘ over her and pouring buckets o~ water on here When the doctor come, he 8aid, ‘You done killed her now0 If you had jus‘ laid her out on the ground azid let the rain tall on her, she would have corne to, but you done drownded her now.‘ She dn‘ t have died if it hadn ‚ t been for them buckets of water that Early Hurt throwed in her face.

	“Honey, they ain‘t nothin‘ as sweet to drink out of as a ~ourd0 Take the seeds out9 Boil the gourd. $crape it and sun it~ There ain‘t no taste left. They don‘t use gourds now.“







Interviewer‘s Gonunent

	Violent death followed L&Lla ~Tackson‘s family like an implacable avenger4 Her father‘s mother was struck and killed by 1i~htningQ Her mother‘s first husband wae thrown to his death in a wre8tling match. Her own husband was dra~ed and kicked to death by a rmile, Her brother~in-. law, Jerry ~Tackson, was killed by a horse. ~it Sister J~ackson i8 bright and cheery and full of faith in God and man, and utterly without bitterne8e0