bottoms. Then I lernt how to make white oak split chair bottoms. I made
all kinds baskets. We had all sizes and kinds of baskets. When they git
old they turn dark. Shuck bottom chairs last longer but they kinner ruff
an' not so fancy.

"Well when they started off fightin' at Murfreesboro, it was a continual
roar. The tin pans in the cubbord (cupboard) rattle all time. It was
distressful. The house shakin' all time. All our houses jar. The earth
quivered. It sound like the judgment. Nobody felt good. Both sides
foragin' one bad as the other, hungry, gittin' everything you put way to
live on. That's "war". I found out all bout what it was. Lady it ain't
nuthin' but hell on dis erth.

"I tole you I was ten miles from the war and how it roared and bout how
the cannons shook the earth. There couldn't be a chicken nor a goose nor
a year of corn to be found bout our place. It was sich hard times. It
was both sides come git what you had. Whole heap of Yankees come in
their blue suits and caps on horses up the lane. They was huntin'
horses. They done got every horse and colt on the place cepin one old
mare, mother of all the stock they had on the place. Young mistress had
a furs bout her and led her up the steps and put her in the house.

"Then when they started to leave, one old Yankee set the corner of the
house on fire. We all got busy then, white folks and darkies both carry
in' water ter put it out. We got it out but while we doin' that, mind
out, they went down the lane to the road by the duck pond we had dug
out. One old soldier spied a goose settin' in the grass. She been so
scared she never come to the house no more. Nobody knowed there was one
on our place. He took his javelin and stuck it through her back. She
started hollowin' and flutterin' till the horses, nearly all of em,