None - American Memory - Library of Congress

g-SLiVE STORIES
^GQS SKm» Page 4. 324
was so mad, he tolc her to get a s^oon and eat every bite before she stopped.
It was scalding hot but he made her do it. She died right away; her insides
were burned.
"Shy, ol ! Thronton was dat mean dat he killed his own son. He just beat
him to death with de v;hip-stock of dat cowhide, a whip made of buckskin. It
was like dis. De boy had a girl he was courtin f in another town. He started
to see her on Saturday noon. Eis daddy tolc him to be back by Sunday night*
But de boy did net feet back before Monday morning, ten o'clock. His father was
in de field v/orking and saw him coming down de road. He went to meet him and
met him at de gate. He asked why he did not get back sooner and lit into beat-
ing him with de whip stock, de part dat should be de whip handle. He beat him
so hard dat de boy died in about ten hours. It aroused de neighborhood and dey
began to plan a lynching party. * He got wind of it some "way and got all his
slaves together and pulled out. He left dat place and no one ever knowed where
he went. Dat happened before de end of de war.
"There was a lot of run-a-way slaves in those days. I never saw any of
dem but I heard de folks talk about deiu. Many passed through our part of de
country. In time of slavery, people were sold like cattle or hogs. There was
no sale bills dat we seen, because folks in dem days was usually honest and did
not have a lot of red tape in buying and selling. Our master would not sell
any of us. He did not believe in separating us, and tried to keep us together.
He didn't have any trouble with his slaves at all. He was as good a man as
ever lived and we did pretty much as we pleased.
"He married before de war, but his first wife died a few months later. He
married a year after hiw wife died. He went to Pennsylvania and came back and