Transcribed For Online by Geraldine cookie@oakhurst.net
Records Contributed by Vicki Bell-Reynolds rreynolds@pdq.net

I would make a rabbit rap but this trap would have to be lined on the inside with tin or the rabbit would eat a hole in my trap that was made out of wood and than they would get out. The trap would have to be lined with tin or the rabbits would get out and tin would hold them in the trap. And that day in time we would have one that would be half knee deep and stay on the ground for several days at a time, so I would have birds and rabbits to eat all winter through. I thought that was wonderful.

There was a negro man that lived close to Woodville by the name of Potts and he was just as mean as could be among his race, he got into a fight one time with another man and this man cut Potts throat from ear to ear and the doctor sew it back and he lived, he and his brother-in-law was always getting into trouble with each other, one time he was in town and he and brother-in-law got into a fight and his brother-in-law begin to shoot at him and when this man would pull the trigger Potts would Jack or jump to one side to dodge the bullet. These were the two men that I have mentioned in another place previous in this book about to shooting at a picnic and a little while after the shooting Potts brother-in-law burned Potts house down, then Potts shot his brother-in-law through the right chest. The law arrested him and had his trail at Madill, Okla. he was clear in the trial and when Potts got off the train at Woodville after the trial he started up town from the depot he jumped up in the air and hollowed real loud and said that I shore do feel good. The white men of the town cleared him of the crime and as time went on Potts joined the church and was baptized in red river and after the baptizing was over some of the negro people hollwed out that we have capture the wolf and from then on Potts was a pretty citzern for that day in time.

The old home place there at Woodville was an awful old house it had been there for a number of years and you could hear rackets there both day and night when you walked across the road it would seem like that some one was walking right behind you and you would be in bed and all of once you could hear sounded like a hail storm that was passing over and hear doors open and close and all kinds of racket there. We lived there six years and we never did lock a door at any time and I have gone in home at all hours of night and go into the house and have gone to bed without lighting a match or light of any kind.

There was an indian boy there by the name of Berry Durham and he was in love with a girl by the name of Myrtle McDuffey, Berry was a drunkard and gambler and he was not welcome in the McDuffey cow lot let alone the house and McDuffey would not let him come on the place. Myrtle when she wanted to talk to Berry she would go over to one of the neighbors house and let Berry know that she was over there and he would come over to see her and talk to her; he wanted to marry her but, she objected because of his drinking and gambling, finally she told him that if he would quit his drinking and gambling that she would marry him, when she told him that he gave her his whisky bottle and his deck of cards and told her to burn the cards and to pour out the whisky that he was through with it all. He quit and left it alone for six months to prove to her that he had really quit and they married. He moved her to one of his houses on the farm and he settled down and you talk about a man working, worked awful hard and made her a good living and when they married Mrs. McDuffey really did cut up she fainted away and they had to bathe her face with cold water to bring her too. The last time that I heard of them they were doing fine and Berry never did drink any more, he stayed right at home and worked and he had never worked before in his life. It certainly did seem odd to see him with work clothes on after seeing him so long all dressed up but, he was an entirely different man after he was married. He left the McDuffies alone even after they married he never did go around them.

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