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20                                           Memories of a Long Life

hear anything like that?”  She knew something was going to happen; it is common for colored people to look for something.  Well, that was Friday night. Saturday morning her husband had gone to mill, about three miles, the colored man was in the field with two mules plowing.  I told one of the little boys to run to the field and tell Uncle Ed to come as quickly as he could, and one of the other little boys to run up and tell Mrs. Pheba Barefoot to send me some mustard seed, your mother is bad off.  I told the colored man to go for Mr. Clark quick as you can.  I got back to the bed and she was sinking fast.  She begged me to get the phlegm out of her throat.  “Please don’t let me strangle to death.”  I stood right by her bed and did all I could, but she was so near gone that she could not speak when her husband got to the bed.  Cousin Isaac Womble was at the mill.  He came right on, but got on his horse, went to Pittsboro, and came back soon with goods to make a burial robe.  Well, I sent to three houses, and not one person could I get to come and help me dress her body.  I sent to get some women to make the robe; three came, two old ones and one young girl, but I had to carry the machine out through the hall to the front porch, so they went to work, and I went in a back room and lay down.  Well, Dr. Stroud came.  He asked for me and they told him I was lying down.  I heard him.  He said, “Just where I expected to find her.”  He came into the room, my head was next to the door, and as he came he laid a hand on my head.  As he came around he sat down, took hold of my hand and felt my pulse.  He felt uneasy for far I had gotten fever.  I told him I was only jaded, but he said he was going to give me some medicine, which he did.  In about three weeks the baby boy died, and two weeks later the second girl, 10 years of age, died.  Isaac was very low.  Sunday when they were going out with his mother a corpse, he just burst out crying, saying,  “Everybody going to leave me by myself to die.”  I went and knelt down by his bed (on a low bedstead), and said, “No, Isaac, I am going to stay with you.”  Well, he was so glad that he threw both arms around my neck (he was but a little boy), and cried.  I did all I could to console the child, and when they got home from church, where she was buried, he seemed better.  I spent a few weeks.  The people in the neighborhood wanted me to teach a school, say two or three months, until cotton opened as the children had to go to picking.  Well, by staying and waiting on the sick I barely got four weeks, but I did not complain.  I felt that God would not let me lose my reward; if lost here, I will receive it in heaven.  I had never made a charge.

 

            Some time after that year, I had my right hand hurt and I had an offer to sell some Sunday school song books from Aldine Keiffer, Va.

("Aldine Keiffer" was a renowned poet, writer, composer. Lucy is probably referring to The Ruebush-Kieffer Company, Dayton, VA)