Transcribed For Online by Geraldine [email protected]
Records Contributed by Vicki Bell-Reynolds [email protected]

whooping cough, but one of these girls came on anyway.  My mother was in the kitchen cooking our supper meal and she heard a noise in the front part of the house and she went in there to see what it was and she found one of these girls laying on the bed with my sister, she gave the girl a good scolding but the baby took the whooping cough in about 7 days and only lived about three  days after taking it and my mother never did have any more use for this girl after that.

in at the back of our house was a great big and high hill, and the government gave that land to the negros for a school house and church house.  They built a small house there and had school and church services all the time and they would start a protracted meeting there about the last of may or the first part june and it would run until about october or november and they would have church services every night in the week.  It was just at the back of our place Ben and I would go up there nearly ever night and watch them carry on their services.  you talk preaching and shouting you would see it then, and there was a great big negro man there, that when the women would get to shouting he would take hold of them and hold them until they would get over the shouting.  Ben and I were up there one night when this big fellow got to shouting  he ran them all out of the house and he made it to about the center of the building he jumped up high into the air and said priase the lord and started running toward the wall of the building and knocked a 1 x 12" board off the building and went on outside and then the people really did take off running for dear life.  Every body in the neighborhood knew this hill as the negro hill.

My father bought a small place there in Woodville that had a good size garden sapace to it, he had heard people say that you planted irish potatoes in the ground and in the sign of the moon,  one year he planted 8 rows of potatoes in the light of moon and 4 rows in the dark of the moon and the 4 rowsthat he planted in the dark of the moon made about 4 times as many potatoes and the 8 rows planted in the light of the moon the one that he planted in the light of the moon grew up and made the prettiest vine of flower that you ever saw and bloomed out.  from then on he would alway plant his potatoes under the dark of the moon.  He would always say that anything that planted under the ground to plant in the dark of the moon and anything planted on top of the ground to plant in the light of the moon.  The 4 rows of potatoes that he planted in the dark of the moon did not grow very high only about 5 to 6 inches tall and was just loaded with potatoes under the vines, there would  be 5 or6 poatoes to each vine.  and the 8 rows that he planted in light of the moon only had 1 or 2 potatoes to the vine.

When Ben and I very small boys, what we wouldnt think about doing and do there was no need for anybody else to think of, because we took eveything in the book, we had a big long chicken coop out in our backyard, and that day there would be peddlers that would come around ever so often with things to sell or trade and our mother would trade eggs or butter for small thing that he might have.  she exchanged some eggs for us some chewing gum  so we took the gum and our dog out to this chicken coop and got into the coop.  I wanted our dog to have some this gum so I took my gum out of my mouth and put it in the dogs mouth for him to chew for a while.  the gum begin to stick to the dogs teeth he tried to get the gum out of his mouth as he took his paws to pick the gum out and he got the gum all tangled up with his teeth and feet together and he was down on the ground rolling over and over so we begin to hollow for mamma to come and help use get our gum from the dog   she came running out of the house and saw the dog rolling over and over.  she reached the coop and got Ben out and when she reached in to get me and just as she pulled me out of the coop I hollowed at her that I wanted my wad, the dog had it in his mouth.  you talk about a good whipping that is when two boys got a good one.

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