My knees was up against my chest. My hands was tied
together just in front of my shins. The stick between my arms and my
knees held me in a squat. That's what they called a buck. You could [TR:
sic: couldn't] stand up an' you couldn't git your feet out. You couldn't
do nothin' but just squat there and take what he put on you. You
couldn't move no way at all. Just try to. You jus' fall over on one side
and have to stay there till you turned over by him.
"He would whip me on one side till that was sore and full of blood and
then he would whip me on the other side till that was all tore up. I got
a scar big as the place my old mis' hit me. She took a bull whip
once--the bull whip had a piece of iron in the handle of it--and she got
mad. She was so mad she took the whip and hit me over the head with the
butt end of it, and the blood flew. It ran all down my back and dripped
off my heels. But I wasn't dassent to stop to do nothin' about it. Old
ugly thing! The devil's got her right now!! They never rubbed no salt
nor nothin' in your back. They didn't need to.
"When the war come, they made him serve. He would go there and run away
and come back home. One day after he had been took away and had come
back, he was settin' down talkin' to old mis', and I was huddled up in
the corner listenin', and I heered him tell her, 'Tain't no use to do
all them things.
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