Ex.slaV~ Stories	Page Three	~
( Texas)








	“Then Miss Gusta done tell me I wasn‘t no slave no urnre, but, shucks, tha.t don‘t rat~an nothin‘ to ~‚ ‘c~us~ I ain‘t never knowed. I was one.

	“In them times the Ku Klux got to ekuilduggerin‘ round ~nd done take Mr. Scruggs and give him a whippin‘ but I never heared what it had to do about. He don‘t like them none, nowvs, and shets hisseif up in the house. He a curious kind of mai, it ‘pear to me, iffen I‘s to tel). the plain out truth. I don ‚ t Ui ink he was much but kind of t rashy,

	~	I~s seventeen M1s2 Giista sickened and suffered in her bed in terrible fashion. She begs the doctors to tell her if she‘s a—dyin‘ so she C ould ei e ar up bus ins ss ~ fote she pass .d. away. She t o~k three days and fixed things up ~nd told me she didn‘t want to leave rae friendless and lone. She wanted UI, to git married. I had a man I thunk I‘d think well of marryln‘ ~nd Miss Gusta t~lVS me ~way on her bed at the weddin‘ in her rom, She told my husband not to cuff me none, 1cau8e I never been ‘bused in my life, and to this day I ain‘t never been hit a lick in my life.

“Liy first baby was born the year of the big yellow fever in New Orleans.

	I had six chilien but they all died when they‘s littl. from crespin‘ spasms.

	I ~dverti~es round in the papers and finds my maniny ~nd she come and lived with

me. She‘s in a pitiful shape. ‘l‘or. the co~sin‘ of war her master done sold her

	and the man what bought her wasn‘t so light on his niggers. She said he made

	her wear breeches and tote big, heavy logs ~nd p~Ow with oxes. One the men knocked . her on back the head with a club and from that day she allus shook her head. from side to side all the tim., like sha couldn‘t git her mind straight. She told me my paw fell off a bluff in M.i~iphis and stuck a sharp rock right through his head. They propped. him in a blanket and buried him. That ‚ s ~ll I ever knowed ‘bout him.