Poe, Mary

The following data is extracted from Arkansas Slave Narratives.

Interviewer: Miss Irene Robertson Person interviewed: Mary Poe, Forrest City, Arkansas Age: 60


"My papa used to tell about two men he knowd stealing a hog. He was Wyatt Alexander. He was feeding one evening and the master was out there too that evening. They overheard two colored men inside the crib lot house. They was looking at the hogs. They planned to come back after dark and get a hog. The way it turned out master dressed up ragged and got inside that night. The first man come. They got a shoat and killed it, knocked it in the head. The master took it on his back to the log cabin. When he knocked, his wife opened the door. She seen who it was. She nearly fell out and when he seen who it was he run off. The master throwed the hog down. They all got the hot water and went to work. He left a third there and took part to the other man. He done gone to bed and he took a third on home. He said he wanted to see if they needed meat or wanted to keep in stealing practice. He didn't want them to waste his big hog meat neither. Said that man never come home for two weeks, 'fraid he'd get a whooping. No, they said he never got a whooping but the meat was near by gone.

"Seem lack hog stealing was common in North Carolina in them days from the way he talked.

"Papa said he went down in the pasture one night to get a shoat. He said they had a fine big drove. He got one knocked over an' was carrying it out across the fence to the field. He seen another man. He couldn't see. It was dark. He throwed the hog over on him. The man took the shoat on to his house and papa was afraid to say much about it. He said way 'long towards day this man come bringing about half of that hog cleaned and ready to salt away. They got up and packed it away out of sight.

"My mother was named Lucy Alexander, too."

Source: Arkansas Slave Narratives

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