He said he would give me the
worst whooping I ever got in my life. I was going back, scared not to be
back. Had no other place to live.
"When New Year day come the white man locked me up in a room in his
house and I stayed in there two days. They brought me plenty to eat. I
slept in there with their children. Mr. Cargo never come after me till
March. He didn't see me when he come. It started in raining and cold and
the roads was bad. When he come in March I seen him. I knowed him. I lay
down and covered up in leaves. They was deep. I had been in the woods
getting sweet-gum when I seen him. He scared me. He never seen me. This
white man bound me to his wife's friend for a year to keep Mr. Cargo
from getting me back. The woman at the house and Mr. Cargo had war
nearly about me. I missed my whoopings. I never got none that whole
year. It was Mrs. Brown, twenty miles from Dardanelle, they bound me
over to. I never got no more than the common run of Negro children but
they wasn't mean to me.
"When I was at Cargo's, he wouldn't buy me shoes. Miss Betty would have
but in them days the man was head of his house. Miss Betty made me
moccasins to wear out in the snow--made them out of old rags and pieces
of his pants. I had risings on my feet and my feet frostbite till they
was solid sores.
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