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"In Mannertee County we herded cows a while, then went share-
croppin down on Sawgrass Slough, back Bradentown. Raisin tomaters an
celery, mostly. But evertime we'd gitta crop good started, seemed like,
they'd come a freeze, er drouth, er blight, er bugs, er sumpun, and kill
out near about everthing we had.

"Parta our twenty acres wuz pee-yore muck, so deep an soft an dry
you could stick a hoe hannel down in it clean up to the hoe. One fall
hit caught a-fire when some cow men sot fire to the woods, an it tuck us
two days an nights to outen it. We had to tote water in buckets fum the
well, bout a quarter away.

"Hit burnt mighty nigh a acre, plum down to hard pan, on the twenty
nex to ourn, where ole Jim Ralls wuz farmin. We holp him to outen his,
an he holp us, but it tuck us an all our famlies to keep it fum spreadin
any furder.

"Well, we couldn't hardly make our seed and fertilize a-farmin.
So paw an ma sot us up a little still down in the big hammock an went
to makin shine. We done right good at that, sellin to bootleggers in
Bradentown an Tampa, but it tuck most all we made to pay off the prohi-
bition agents fer lettin us run.

"After we'd ben there bout two years maw died with playgry
Then paw, the ole billy-goat, went an married a neighbor gal ony 14 years

old—jist a little fryin-size biddy, 'thout no more sense an a pond gannet.
An paw goin on 50 year old! He traded her daddy six hawgs an ten gallon-
a shine fer the pesky brat. After they got married he brung her home to
live with us in our ole shack.

"Me an Dory—that wuz my sister, a year youngern me an the ony other
youngun left—we fussed a plenty at paw fer doin sich a fool thing, but
he wouldn't pay us no mind.

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