down do cellar, an' he had call me to ask ef I didn't want a piece o' de veal dat was hangin' up dyar. An' he cut it for me himself."
Here mammy's thoughts went back to the war-times, and she went on:
"Dat big man Edmund come to me an' he say, 'Ole 'oman, do you want me to box up your things? I have packed up a heap o' things for de udder people.' He had he saw an' hammer in he hand. I said, 'No, I don't want anything boxed up. I am not goin' anywhere.' He said I was foolish,— that all de people were goin' because dere was a ship-load o' money at Grand Gulf for 'em. I tole him dat it could stay there then. I would not leave. He was very mad and say, 'Yes, you an' ole sis Kitty are jes' alike. You are 'feared o' losin' some o' your plunder here.' I tole him to go out o' my door, an' he went out, an' I hab never seen him since. He come to a bad end after all. He was shot.
"After marster come from Georgia, he come to me one day an' say,—
"'Harriet, what made Becky leave me?'
"I tole him that Becky was forced off.[1]
"He say, 'Why did Major leave me?'
" I say, 'Marster, I will tell you de truth. You yourself did wrong. You leff your people. Two white men, Mr.—— and Mr.——, tole us dat j'ou leff dem to take us to Leaf River. We would have died before we would have followed dem!' Marster hadn't nebber tole dem! He was 'stonished. 'Yes,' I said, 'an' dey went in de field an' shot guns at our people to skeer 'em.' They wanted to force 'em to go wid 'em.
"Dey shot at my gal Mary as she was comin' home to her baby at night, an' she run an' fall in a gully,
- ↑ Becky was one of his greatest favorites. She was subject to violent illnesses, and at such times he bathed her head with his own hands, and he and his wife and children held her head and sat by her till the crisis was passed. Cakes that she specially fancied were made by the ladies themselves for her. A few days after her husband, Edmund, forced her off, she was dying, where many of the Hinds County negroes died, on the banks of the Big Black. As she lay dying, she cried out, "If I could only get back to my marster! If I could only get back to my marster!"
