| and took in a share cropper. This man
did good until he got his crop planted, then he got so sick that his
neighbors began to help him with his crop. Then he decided that he would
be better off to stay sick. The men became suspicious of him, and when
they learned he was only pretending to be sick, they disguised them
selves and beat him up one night. The next morning the man was calling
our house a four o’clock. He said to Pa. "Harrison, I want a
team of horses and a middling of meat. Some men beat me up last night,
and now I have to work whether well or sick." From then on the
man worked hard and made a good crop. From our side of the field, we
could hear the man praying to the good Lord not to let the men whip him
again. I remember that my sister, Doary, and I found this man’s watch
in the field where he had been praying. We decided to keep the watch
ourselves. We thought we could hide it in the bottom of Pa’s big
trunk, then we could slip in and play with it when no one was around. We
hid the watch alright, but my brother, Lawrence, found it and dismantled
it. He couldn’t put it back together again.
The next year another man played sick with an injured arm. The men slipped in on him at night and discovered he was faking. The six men who did the beating (including my brother, Lawrence) were themselves so badly beaten that they had to stay out of circulation until they were healed to keep from being identified. It was a criminal offense to beat a man. At any rate, the man they beat learned his lesson and went back to work. IN AND OUTS ON THE FARM A family moved into our neighborhood from Missouri. The man of the house was a poor man. All he had for farming was a yoke of oxen. His only daughter got fooled by her boyfriend and had a baby out of wedlock. They had decided to move to Arkansas, thinking by doing so, they could forget the whole affair. They found a place to rent and began to try to make a crop, but they were completely broke and did not know anyone to whom they could turn to for help. The man went to all of his neighbors and was turned down when he asked
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