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been told.' He laughed a little, an' then he walked out thar an' Picked up th' jug.
"Nobody but Ora could have told 'en, fer she was th' only one 'sides me that knowed whar it was. She was in th' house when they come, but I never even said howdy to 'er. I jes' went with 'em to Talladega, an' stayed in jail till I got Oscar Johnson to go my bond. My case come up at th' next term of court, an' that's why I had to go to prison. She sent me thar, an' now she is p'isened my children's min's ag'in me.
"Why I ever got married to her, I don't know. I'd knowed her ever since she was a strip of a gal, but I never knowed she was a devil. I ain't got no excuse, though. Her daddy come to me 'fore we was married, an' he says, 'Jim, they's sump'un you ought'er know. Ora's mighty nervous-like, an' sometimes she does things that make me b'lieve she ain't got good sense. She's got a good face 'round you, but she can raise more hell'n a mean mule. I don't like to talk 'bout my own flesh an' blood, but I jes' want you to go in this thing with yo'r eyes open.'
"That ol ' man was tellin' me th' God's truth, but didn't b'lieve him. I thought he was jes' wantin' to keep his gal at home, but I know now he was a good friend tryin' to save me. He tol' me that when she had one of her spells she'd take a dress an' rip it to pieces. That tickled me, for I thought Ora
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was th' best hearted woman in th' world. Well, I've seen her tear up dresses. I've seen her tear up a lot of 'em.
"It wasn't a week atter we married, 'fore she was r'arin'. They wasn't nothin' that'd suit her. I was workin' at Hope's Quarry them, makin' $35 a month, an' that was purty fair money in them times. We didn't pay no rent, an' I'd bought up a little furniture. We had plenty fer our bellies an ' backs, but that wasn't enough fer her.
"She got atter me right off to go to Mr. Hope an' tell him he'd have to pay me more. She got to talkin' 'bout him an' his folks ridin' in their fine buggies an' wearin' their fine clo's, while we was makin' out with nothin'. Well, you know a man can't go to his boss an' ask a raise right off 'n th' bat. He'd git fired quicker'n you can bat yo'r eye; but Ora didn't give a damn 'bout that. She was jes' full of ol' hell, an' she didn't like fer things to be quiet.
"When she seen they wasn't go'nter be no more money, she started waggin' her tongue. She tol' ever'body that come to see us how hard it was to be married to a po'r man, an' she said she wouldn't never marry me ag'in. That got next to me, but I stood it till she started carryin' tales 'bout Mister Hope. She went aroun' tellin' that she seen him fall off'n his horse, he's so drunk. That wasn't nothin' but a lie, fer Mister Hope never drunk none;
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but th' tale didn't do me no good with other men at the quarry. Course their wives tol' 'em about it , an' I guess they couldn't understan' why I didn't put a stop to it. "I knowed I'd hav'to git Ora away from thar. Didn't nobody come to see us no more, an' i t was go'n'ter be jes' a matter of time till Mister Hope got hold of one of them tales. He liked me, but I knowed he couldn't put up with nothin' like that. I started castin' out my lines, an' one day I got a chance to go to th' Red Diamond mine close to Birmingham. I'd never fooled none with coal, but I's ready to t r y anything. "Well, sir, it looked like that move was a good'un. I's makin' $60 when I first went thar, but it wasn't long 'fore they put me to guardin' the convicts an' give me $65. Ora seemed to be th' gal I'd courted fer a while, an' she was havin' a good time with th' extra money. It didn't cost much more to live in Birmingham then, fer it was jes' a little town, 'bout th' size that Sylacaugy is now. It wasn't long 'fore Ora was go'nter have a baby, an' I thought my troubles was over. "I got my first trainin' at handlin' men when I's watchin' them convicts. They was a bad crowd, an' I had to be bad with 'em. I hadn't been thar two weeks when I got atter a buck nigger 'bout how he was buildin' a scaffold that keeps
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th' roof from fallin' in; an' he sassed me. They'd done told me never to nothin' off them bastards, so I jes' went over to him an' nearly beat his brains out with my club. That nigger wasn't able to dig no more coal fer a long time.
"They was a lot of people back then who was causin' trouble 'bout th' convicts. They said it wasn't right fer th' State to hire 'em out to th' operators, an' they kept on till they put a stop to it. But I don't know if they was right or not. A man wouldn't be so ready to rob or kill somebody if he knowed he was goin' to th' mines. When he was hired out back then, they wasn't no pamperin'. I remember they told us to shoot quick as hell if anybody got rough, or tried runnin' off. They said they was lots more whar these come from, an' that when you knocked one of 'em off it was no worse'n killin' a hog or a cow. "I never did have to kill nobody. A white man started runnin' off one day an' I let him have a load of buckshot in th' legs, but he got well. We had one guard, though, that'd killed a flock of 'em. He was a big, raw-boned man name of Giles, an' he had th' convicts so skeered of him that they'd start tremblin' when he was aroun'. He told me one day that when he leveled down on one, he aimed to kill him. He said th' company'd rather have a guard do that than to jes' wound one, fer a dead convict didn't cost nothin' fer medicine.
"We done some things that wasn't right, I know. When I was bein' watched
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by th' law myself, I thought about that , an' I was thankful I waited till I was a ol' man to git in trouble. We useta keep a big barr'l out hack of a shed a th' mines, an' when I think back on it now. I know we whooped niggers jes' to have fun. We'd pull their britches off an' strop 'em across th' barr'l by their hands an' feet so they couldn't move, an' then we'd lay i t on 'em with a leather strop. I've seen niggers with their rumps lookin' like a piece of raw beef. Some of 'em would pass out like a light, but they'd all put up a awful howl, beggin' us to stop. It wasn't right fer us to do that.
"Th' company had lots of ways to mate a bad convict work, but us guards didn't follow 'em much. Didn't nobody want to put a convict in the sweat box, or feed him on bread an' water, fer they wasn't no fun in watchin' that. We had one white man that was servin' a term fer robbery, an' he was one of th' stubbomest devils I ever seen. He was put in th' sweat box, an ' he was whooped a time or two, but still he loafed aroun' lookin' like he was wantin' trouble. Well, one day 'long 'bout quittin' time, he got it.
"They'd put him in Giles' gang—that's whar they put most of th' bad 'uns. Giles kept tellin' him that he was go'nter make him work if he had t o kill him, but th' convict either didn't b'lieve him or he didn't care. Well , it kept up l i k e that fer a good while, an' then Giles got some handcuffs an' had 'em
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