He was in
the Bayou in a boat and the bottom dropped out of it. He climbed a tree
and hollered for someone to tel his master to come and get him if he
wanted him.
FATHER
My father's master was John T. Williams. He went into the army--the
rebel army--and taken my father with him. I don't know how long my
father stayed in the army but I was only 6 months old when he died. He
had some kind of stomach trouble and died a natural death.
MOTHER
My mother and father both belonged to Joe Ward at first but Ward died
and his widow married Williams. My mother told me and not only told me
but showed me knots across her shoulder where they whipped her from
seven in the morning until nine at night. She went into the smoke house
to get some meat and they closed in on her and shut the door and strung
her up by her hands (her arms were crossed and a rope run from her
wrists to the hook in the ceiling on which meat was hung). There were
three of them. One would whip until he was tired, and then the other
would take it up.
Some years after she got that whipping, her master's child was down to
the bayou playing in the water. She told the child to stop playing in
the water, and it did not. Instead it threw dirt into the water that had
the bluing in it. Then she took the child and threw it into the Bayou.
Some way or other the child managed to scramble out.
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