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"Arkansas Narratives, Part 2"

' He said, 'I beg your pardon, doctor.'
"My young master got up and said, 'Where is my spy glasses? Le'me have a
look.' He went out and there was a mountain called the Blue Ridge
Mountain. He looked but he didn't see nothin'. I went out and looked
too. I said, 'Look down the line beside those two big trees,' and I
handed the glasses back to him. He looked and then he hollered, 'My God,
look yonder' and handed the spy glasses to the other officer. He looked
too. Then the doctor said, 'What are we going to do?' He said, 'I am
goin' to put pickets way out.' He told me to get to my mule. I got. He
put one of his spurs on my foot and told me to go home and tell 'ma' the
Yanks were coming. You know what 'ma' he was talking about? That was his
wife's mother. We all called her 'mother.'
"I carried the note. When I got to Mrs. Dobbins' house, I yelled, 'The
Yanks are coming--Yankees, Yankees, Yankees!' She had two boys. They
runned out and said, 'What did you say?'
"I said, 'Yankees, Yankees!'
"They said, 'Hell, what could he see?'
"I come on then and got against Miss Yancy's. She had a son, a man named
Henry Yancy. He had a sore leg. He asked me what I said. I told him that
the Yanks were coming.


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