to raise it long before I was born. They cut grain with cradles in dem
days. They had a lot 'o men and would slay a lot 'o wheat in a day. It
was pretty work to see four or five cradlers in a field and others
following them raking the wheat in bunches and others following binding
them in bundles. The first reapers that came were called Dorsey reapers.
They cut the grain and bunched it. It was then bound by hand.

"When my Missis took me away from the river bottom I lived in
Poolesville where the Kohlhoss home and garage is. I worked around the
house and garden. I remember when the Yankee and Confederate soldiers
both came to Poolesville. Capn Sam White (son of the doctor) he join the
Confederate in Virginia. He come home and say he goin to take me along
back with him for to serve him. But the Yankees came and he left very
sudden and leave me behind. I was glad I didn't have to go with him. I
saw all that fightin around Poolesville. I used to like to watch em
fightin. I saw a Yankee soldier shoot a Confederate and kill him. He
raised his gun twice to shoot but he kept dodgin around the house an he
didn' want to shoot when he might hit someone else. When he ran from the
house he shot him.

"Yes sah, them Confederates done more things around here than the
Yankees did. I remember once during the war they came to town. It was
Sunday morning an I was sittin in the gallery of the ole brick Methodist
church. One of them came to de door and he pointed his pistol right at
that preacher's head. The gallery had an outside stairs then. I ran to
de door to go down de stairs but there was another un there pointing his
gun and they say don't nobody leave dis building. The others they was a
cleanin up all the hosses and wagons round the church. The one who was
guarding de stairs, he kept a lookin to see if dey was done cleaning up
de hosses, and when he wasn't watching I slip half way down de stairs,