Yankees come and wanted to hang
old master cause he wouldn't tell where the money was. They tied his
hands behind him and had a rope around his neck. Now this is the
straight goods. I was just a boy and I was cryin' cause I didn't want em
to hang old master. A Yankee lieutenant comes up and made em quit--they
was just the privates you know.
"My old master drove a ox wagon to the gold fields in California in '49.
That's what they told me--that was fore I was born.
"Good? Ben Word good? My God Amighty, I wish I had one-hundredth part of
what I got then. I didn't exist--I lived.
"Ben Word bought my mother from Phil Ford up in Kentucky. She was the
housekeeper after old mistress died. I'll tell you something that may be
amusing. Mother had lots of nice things, quilts and things, and kept em
in a chest in her little old shack. One day a Yankee soldier climbed in
the back window and took some of the quilts. He rolled em up and was
walking out of the yard when mother saw him and said, 'Why you nasty,
stinkin' rascal. You may you come down here to fight for the niggers,
and now you're stealin' from em.' He said, 'You're a G-D--liar, I'm
fightin' for $14 a month and the Union.'
"I member there was a young man named Dan Brown and they called him Red
Fox. He'd slip up on the Yankees and shoot em, so the Yankees was always
lookin' for him.
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