Everything was ground up together and then dried. You had to soak it
like dried peas before cooking.
After the war they came to Mrs. Blakeley, the soldiers did, and accused
her of keeping me against my will. I told them that I stayed because I
wanted to, the Blakeleys were my people. They let me alone, the whites
did, but the negroes didn't like it. They tried to fight me and called
me names. There was a well near the square from which everybody got
water. Between it and our house was a negro cabin. The little negroes
would rock me. I stood it as long as I could. Then I told Mrs. Blakeley.
She said to get some rocks in my bucket and if they rocked me to heave
back. I was a good shot and they ran. Their mother came to Mrs. Blakeley
to complain, but she told her after hearing her thru that I had stood
all I could and the only reason I hadn't been seriously hurt was because
her children weren't good shots. They never bothered me again.
It was hard after the war. The Federals stayed on for a long time.
Fences were down, houses were burned, stock was gone, but we got along
somehow. When Nora Blakeley was 14 a lady was teaching a subscription
school in the hall across the street--the same hall Mrs. Blakely had
saved from burning. She wanted Nora to teach for her. So, child that she
was, she went over and pretty soon she was teaching up to the fourth
grade.
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