Mrs Duncan
From:
Kentucky
WAYNE CO.
(Gertrude Vogler)
[Mrs. Duncan:]
"After the War was over mammie's old man did not want us with them, so
he threatened to kill us. Then my old mammie fixed us a little bundle of
what few clothes we had and started us two children out to go back to
the Campbell family in Albany. The road was just a wilderness and full
of wild animals and varmints. Mammie gave us some powder and some
matches, telling us to put a little down in the road every little while
and set fire to it. This would scare the wild animals away from us.
"We got to the river at almost dark and some old woman set us across the
river in a canoe. She let us stay all night wit her, and we went on to
'Grandpap Campbells'' (We always called him grandpap instead of master,
as the others did.) When he saw us comin' he said 'Lawd have mercy here
comes them poor little chillun'.
"I stayed with them that time until I was big enough to be a house girl.
Then I went to live with the Harrison family in Albany; and I lived with
them till I married old Sam Duncan and come to Wayne County to live.
I've raised a family of nine children and have thirty-seven grand
children and twenty great grand children.
"Every one of my children wears a silver dime on a string around their
leg, to keep off the witches spell. One time, before my daughter Della
got to wearing it, she was going down the road, not far from our house,
when all at once her leg gave way and she could not walk. Of course I
knowed what it was. So I went after Linda Woods, the witch doctor. She
come with a bottle of something, all striped with all colors, but when
you shake it up it was all the same color. She rubbed her leg with it
and told me to get all the life everlasting (a weed you know) that I
could carry in my arm, and brew it for tea to bathe her leg in. Then
pour it in a hole in the ground, but not to cover it up. Then not to go
down the same road for nine days.
"We did all she said, and her leg got all right as soon as we bathed it.
But she did not wait nine days, and started down the road the next day.
The very same thing happened to her again. Her leg give way under her
and she could not walk a step.
"I went after Linda Woods again. This time she said, 'D--m her, I told
her not to go over that road for nine days.' But she came with the
striped bottle and destroyed the witch spell again, telling her this
time if she went over the road again for nine days that she would remain
a cripple all her life, for she would not cure her again.
"Della stayed off that road for nine days, this time, and all the
family have worn the silver dime around their legs ever since.
"Another time my old man Sam got down in his back. Well, he went to
Henry Coulter (he was another witch doctor). He just shot in the back
with a glass pistol, and cured him. Of course there was not any bullet
in the pistol, but it cured him. He could draw a picture of a chicken on
a paper and shoot it, and a chicken would fall dead in the yard, yes
sir. I've seen him do it. Old Henry is dead now though. When he died he
had a whole trunk full of the queerest looking things you ever seed. And
they took it all and buried it. Nobody would touch it for anything.
"I always keep a horse shoe over my door to keep the spirits away. We
live very close to the graveyard, and my boy Ed said he had been seeing
his brother Charley in his room every night. If he was livin' right he
would not be seeing Charlie every night. Charlie never bothers me. He
was my boy that died and is buried in this graveyard above our house."
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Elizabeth Alexander
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John R Cox
