Tuesday, August 29, 1826

It was a hot humid day and we were midway through the fall harvest. Massa Stone had us hanging baccer in the barn to cure. There was an uneasy feeling among the slaves and talk of being sent down the river. The other men were planning something, but I didn’t want to know the details.

On this particular day, half of the fields had been cut. By the middle of the afternoon, we sees big storm clouds rolling in out of the west. Massa Edward comes riding up on his big hoss and says we gots to get the crop in the barn before the rain hits. He has us all rushing around and cracking his whip saying, “Get to work you worthless niggers!”

They had me on the wagon handing off sticks to the stronger young men, who handed it up to those reaching down from the lower rails. Sweat be pouring off all of us as well as baccer juice that would drip in our eyes.  We was racing against time to get it all in the barn. 

The wind started picking up and the skies grew dark. It was getting hard to see up in top of the barn. Massa keep yelling to work faster.

Suddenly we hears a crack, then a scream coming from up in the rafters. One of the rails probably broke in half from the weight, “Look out!” I hears a most horrible crash. Young Thomas, a boy only 15 year old, falls from the top of the barn and hits two other men on the way down. I jumps out of the way when I hears the noise. They’s a pile of men and baccer lying on top of the wagon moaning and groaning. I notices blood everywhere, but we can’t tell whose it is. Two of the men got to their feet with minor cuts and scratches, but seemed to be okay. As we dug, we found young Thomas gushing blood. A stick had gone clear through his stomach and he was holding it tight.

Jo, the boy’s daddy, comes running over and holds the boy in his arms.

 “We needs to get this boy sewn up quick befo he bleeds to death!” he hollers, but Massa Edward just tells us to get back to work before the rains come. Jo, reluctantly tells the boy to hold on as he goes back up into the rafters.

I looks over and sees Thomas lying on the ground with a burlap bag pressed against his belly, looking up at me. I can’t do nothin’ to help, but gets back to handing off baccer. We keeps yelling back. “Hold on Thomas, Soon as we finish, we can tend to your wounds.”

The rains came quick and it got dark. Massa Edwards brings in a second wagon, and we work so fast hoping to finish befo he bleeds to death. We calls out to him, but there is no answer. When the last wagon was finished, we jumped down to check on Thomas, but he was already cold. Jo bent down and held his boy in his arms and cried.

“Pick up his body and toss it on the wagon!” Massa Edward says, as he hitches up the hoss to the wagon, and we goes racin’ back to the main house. I shook with rage, but there wasn’t nothin I could do. Everyone was quiet as the rain soaked us to the bone, and no one says a word as they carried his body and laid it on the back lawn.

Gracie comes running out of the slave quarters and grabs her son in her arms rocking back and forth. “What happened? Why is my boy dead?” she screamed. 

“He fell from the rafters. Got poked by a stick,” I says, shaking my head.

“Why didn’t you bring him back to get patched up?” she asked.

“Massa Edward says we have to get the baccer in the barn first. We tried to finish quick, but it was too late,” says Duke. 

Jo walked up to his wife and dropped to his knees beside her. Edward goes inside and brings out Massa Stone who tells us to break it up and go back to the quarters. He said he deal with the body.  Just then, my niece Lizzie goes running up to the boss and starts yelling and hollering in his face. I told her to stop, but she don’t listen to me. She says it’s his fault Thomas is dead. Massa Stone just laughs and pushes her to the ground. “You can’t talk to me like that bitch. You’re gonna be the first on my list to get sent down the river this year. How you feel about that?” he says, laughing as he walks back inside. 

After Massa Stone goes inside, I runs up to Lizzie and says, “Girl, what was you thinking? I don’t want to lose the only family I gots left and now they takes that away from me,” I cried, as I led her to the slave quarters.

That night as me and the other men got ready fo bed, I says, “You can count me in on your plan.”