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baby foi‘ their best friends. So the baby‘ was named Willie Richard Edgar Mappin for the best friends of the young ladies. He later dropped the name Edgar and goes by the name ot Willie Richard Gullins.

	“Uncle David you say your owners name was Mappin, why is your naine Gull ins? „ ~~‘weu ‚ Miss ‚ ‘ 11 have to digress a little to give you the history of the name. Every effect has a cause you know, and after I got old enough to reason things out, I wondered too why my name was Gullins ‚ so I did some investigating and the story goes like this~ ~en I was a very small boy back before the war ‚ a circus osme to w. I remezaber the o lown ‚ whose naiae was Gullins. My tather, John Mappin, was so much like the clown in his ways and sayings ‚ that afterwards everyone started calling him Gullins • This soon became a sort of nickname • Some years after when slaves were freed, they were all registered, most of them takIng the family name of‘ their owners • When time came for my father to register, the Registrar says, “John, what name are you going to register under, Mappin or Gullins? Everyone calls you Gullins, and they will always call you Gu].lins. My father, after thinking for a moment said, “just put down I~uilins.“ By t~iis time I wa~ beginning to think that Uncle Dave was pretty much of a clown himself.

	“Now Uncle Dave tell me your early impressions of your mother and father.“ ~ my mother was one of the beet ~msn God ever made • Back in slavery time I recall the trundle bed that w e childr.n slept on. In the dey it was pushed under the big bed, end at night it was pulled out for us to sleep on. All through oold,bitter winter nights, I rmember my mother getting up often to see about us end to keep the cover tucked in. She thought us sound asleep,