"Did you ever know of Monroe Brackins over at Hondo City? Well, I and him was both jes' boys and was with Jess Campbell, Joe Dean and a man named McLemore. They was white men. We went down on the Frio River, and there was some pens down there on the Johnson place. They was three brothers of them Johnsons. We had a little bunch of cattle, goin' down there. This Jess Campbell and Joe Dean was full of devilment and they knew Monroe was awful scarey. When we penned the cattle that evenin' it was late and Monroe noticed a pile of brush at the side of the gate. He asked 'em what you reckin that was there, and they told him they was a man killed and buried there. That night after dark they was fixin' to get supper ready and told Monroe to go get some water down at the river, but he wouldn't do it. Well, I never was afraid of the dark in my life, so I had to go get the water. Well, we made a fire and fixed supper and then these men put a rope on Monroe and took him off a little piece and wrapped the rope around a tree and never even tied the rope fast. The other man, McLemore, he went around the camp and came up on the other side. He had an old dried cow hide with the tail still on it. The old tail was all bent, crimped up. Here he come from down the creek, from where they told Monroe that fellow was buried, and right toward Monroe with that hide on. Tail first and in the dark it looked pretty bad, and, I tell you, Monroe got to screamin'. I believe he would have died if they hadn't let him loose. I never laughed so much in my life. When he would get scared, he would squeal like a hog. He sure was scarey.
"Sometimes, I know, we would be woke up in the night and they would be cookin' chicken and dumplin's, or havin' somethin' like that. I'd like for 'em to come ever' night and wake me up. I don't know where it come from, but they would always wake the chillen up and let 'em have some of it. (This is an early recollection of his childhood during slavery.)
"My mother's daddy, if he was here, he could tell plenty of things. He could remember all about them days, and sing them songs too. I've heard him tell some mighty bad things, and he told somethin' pretty bad on hisself. He said they captured some Indian chillen and he was carryin one and it got to cryin' and he jes' took his saber and held it up by its feet and cut its head off. Couldn't stan' to hear it cry. He got punished for it, but he said he was a soldier and not supposed to carry Indian babies. Usually when Indians captured little fellows like that, they carried 'em off. Like when they carried off Frank Buckilew, a white boy. And a cullud boy that got away up close to Utopia. They kep' the Buckilew boy a long time, long enough that he got to where he understood the language. It was a long time that the Indians didn't kill a darky, though. But after the war, when they brought these cullud soldiers in here to drive 'em back, that started the war with the cullud people then.
"After freedom, I remember one weddin' the white folks had. That was when John Kanedy (Kennedy) married Melinda Johnson. He was a man that lived there on the river and was there up to the time he died. I wasn't at the weddin', but I was at the infair. They were married east of Hondo City. They had the infair then and it was a kind of celebration after the weddin'. Ever'body met there and had a big dance and supper and had a big time. They danced all night after the supper and then had a big breakfast the next mornin'. I was little, but I remember the supper and breakfast, for I was enjoyin' that myself. They was lots to eat, and they had it too. After freedom, I remember these quiltin's where they would have big dinners. They would have me there, threadin' needles for 'em. We always had a big time Christmas. They had dances and dinners for a week. Yes'm, the cullud people did. They would celebrate the holidays out. That was all free too, and they all had plenty to eat. They would meet at one place one night and have a dance and supper and, the next night, meet over at another place and have the same thing.
"When I got to workin' for myself, it was cow work. I done horseback work for fifty years. Many a year passed that I never missed a day bein' in the saddle. I stayed thirteen years on one ranch. The first place was right below Hondo City. His name was Tally Burnett and I was gettin' $7.50 a month. Went to work for that and stayed about three or four months and he raised my wages to what the others was gettin' and that was $12.50. He said I was as good as they were. Then I went to Frio City. I done the same kind of work, but I went with the people that nearly raised me, the Rutledges.
"That's where I was give twice in the census. My mother gave me in and he gave me in. That was one time they had one man too many.
"I married when I was with them and I worked for him after that. That was when we would work away down on the Rio Grande, when Demp Fenley and Lee Langford and Tom Roland and the two Lease boys and one or two more was deliverin' cattle to the Gold Franks' ranch. He wanted 8,000 two-year-old heifers. He had 150,000 acres of land and wanted cattle to stock it. Some taken a contract to deliver so many and some taken a contract to deliver so many, so these men I was with went down below Laredo and down in there. We wound that up in '85. In '86, I went to Kerr County and taken a ranch out there on the head of the Guadalupe River. I stayed there two years and a half, till they sold out. This man I was workin' for was from Boston, and he leased the ranch and turned it over to me and I done all the hirin' and payin' off and buyin' and ever'thing. When he sold out, I left and went on the Horton ranch about thirteen months.
"My first wife died in 1892, but we had been separated about five or six years. I married again in Bandera and quit ranchin' and went to stock farmin' for Albert Miller, then leased a place from Charley Montague two years, then went over into Hondo Canyon and leased a place there in '98. We stayed there till 1906, then came to Uvalde. I leased a place out here, about two hundred acres, four miles from town, and had odd jobs around here too. Then, about 1907, we went to Zavala County and stayed till 1919. I leased a place here, then, and finally settled at this place I'm on now and have been here ever since.
"I've got 11 chillen livin'. One boy, Alfred, is in Lousiana and I don't know what he's doin', but he's been married about five times. I have a boy workin' in the post office in San Antonio named Mack, and the rest of the chillen are here. There's Sarah, Riley, Frank, James, Banetta, John, Theodore, Tommy, Annie Laurie. They all live here and work at different places.
"I know when we used to camp out in the winter time we would have these old-time freezes, when ever'thing was covered in ice. We would have a big, fat cow hangin' up and we could slice that meat off and have the best meals. And when we was on the cow hunts we would start out with meal, salt and coffee and carry the beddin' for six or eight men on two horses and carry our rations on another horse. I guess it would scare people now to hear 'em comin' with all them pots and pans and makin' all that racket.