He beat my
mother till she woke up. When she woke up, she took a pole out of the
loom and beat him nearly to death with it. He hollered, 'Don't beat me
no more, and I won't let 'em whip you.'
"She said, 'I'm goin' to kill you. These black titties sucked you, and
then you come out here to beat me.' And when she left him, he wasn't
able to walk.
"And that was the last I seen of her until after freedom. She went out
and got on an old cow that she used to milk--Dolly, she called it. She
rode away from the plantation, because she knew they would kill her if
she stayed.
"My mother was named Luvenia Polk. She got plumb away and stayed away.
On account of that, I was raised by my mother. She went to Atchison,
Kansas--rode all through them woods on that cow. Tore her clothes all
off on those bushes.
"Once a man stopped her and she said, 'My folks gone to Kansas and I
don't know how to find 'em.' He told her just how to go.
"My father was an Indian. 'Way back in the dark days, his mother ran
away, and when she came up, that's what she come with--a little Indian
boy. They called him 'Waw-_hoo_'che.' His master's name was Tom Polk.
Tom Polk was my mother's master too. It was Tom Polk's boy that my
mother beat up.
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