I FORGOT TO TELL HOW, when we left the plantation, Massa did two things that turned out bad for us.

He brought along Big Red to oversee his slaves and he purchased Uncle Raymond, Mama's brother, who was at the same plantation where my daddy lived. I like to think he purchased Uncle Raymond for Mama's sake, because he couldn't purchase my daddy.

Uncle Raymond was a man of good parts. He was gentle and he laughed a lot, and once at Hampden-Sydney he taught us chilluns to dance. He played the banjo and taught us the turkey trot and the buzzard lope and the Mary Jane.

He taught us to hold hands and dance in a ring, to sing, "You steal my true love and I steal your'en."

The men and women usually joined in, carrying big, fat lighted torches of kindling wood while they danced.

In no time at all Uncle Raymond became uncle to every child on the place, nigra and white. That is, when he wasn't doing his job of making bricks.

There was building going on at the college, and when Massa brought along Uncle Raymond he right off hired him out to the college to make bricks out of the red clay that was all around.

He had to keep all the farm tools in order, too. Part of those tools were harnesses and plow lines.

In spring, around about April, Uncle Raymond lost a set of harnesses. Massa gave him a new set and told him that if he lost those he would be punished real bad-like.

All I can say is that Uncle Raymond must have known a side of Massa that the rest of us never knew about. Because of how it turned out in the end.

EVERY MORNING WHEN Mama got up, she took a bucket and walked down to Dry Fork Creek to get some water to wash herself with.

One morning we heard her outside, screaming. I was in the kitchen with Grandma Sarry, having breakfast.

"That's your mama," Grandma said, and she ran out the kitchen door.

I ran out after her. And sure enough, there was Mama running up the hill from the creek, her skirts all flapping and her hair all askew. You'd think Raw Head and Bloody Bones were chasing her.

"Child, what is it, child?" Grandma yelled.

"Raymond," Mama sobbed. "Oh, Mama, he's dead."

"Dead? How? Why?"

"What happened, Aggy?" A door slammed and Massa came out of the residence.

"Raymond. Oh, Massa, he done kilt himself. He done hang himself on the tree down by the creek."

***

UNCLE RAYMOND HAD lost the second set of harnesses. "He hanged himself rather than be punished the way Massa punishes his servants," Grandma said.

As it turned out in the end, we found that the harness had been stolen. Big Red found the man who stole it, a nigra who was not punished for it because everybody was in an uproar over Uncle Raymond.

Mama never again took up her bucket in the morning and went down to Dry Fork Creek to get her water. I had to do it for her. But after that I learned that there were better fears to have than Raw Head and Bloody Bones. And they were the people all around us all the time.

THEY CUT Uncle Raymond down and washed him good and wrapped him in a winding-sheet, then laid him on a cooling board where he would stay until his coffin was made. The cooling board was like an ironing board, only it had four sturdy legs.

They put a suit of clothes on him, what looked like an old suit of Massa's.

After the slaves came in from the fields that night we held his funeral. They dug a grave in the slave graveyard, which was different than the regular one behind the church. Some white folks came to the funeral. We sang "Hark from the Tomb" and "Amazing Grace," and Mama cried something fierce. All the children cried.

I heard Massa say in a low voice to Big Red, "Damn, I lost a prime nigra. Worth from three to five thousand."