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Sept 7- 1991
I had not intended telling why that I had said this man I spoke of in the earlier part of my writing was such a dirty man and that I knew what I was talking about. So to keep any one who reads this from being curious, I'll tell you how I know. One day sister Stella sent me down to the spring which was a short distance down the hill from the house to wash out some dish towels and hand towels so not long after I had been down there this man came and stopped his ox team with a load of logs under a big sweet gum tree in the shade to let his oxen cool off a little and breath as the weather was so terribly hot. So he came on to the spring to get a drink as we kept a dipper hanging on a post where people were always stopping by to get a drink, as the water was ice cold all the summer and warm in the winter. Any way this man started a conversation with me. He asked me where my father was and I told him he had gone to town to get horse and cow feed. So then he wanted to know if I was by myself so I told him no, my sister was at the house. So then he wanted to know if I loved him and I said sure I do because my daddy has told me we should love every body. Then asked me how much I loved him and innocent, crazy me told him I didn't know but I guessed I loved him a dollars worth, so then he asked me if I'd be his little Sweetheart and I said "Sweetheart" I said my daddy has told me that a girl or woman should not fool with another woman's husband because it was wrong and I said you are a married man with a bunch of children and he said that's alright, I have five little Sweethearts in Logtown so I didn't have any better sense than to ask him who they were and he told me, so by that time I begin to wonder why he was asking me all of those questions, so I took off running as fast as my feet would carry me and when I got to the back gallery, Stella was standing there and she said what in the world is the matter with you? You are as white as a sheet and I said nothing and she said Pearl, what did that dirty man say to you? So I told her he asked me to be his sweetheart and she said that dirty low down thing, you wait till brother Jay comes. So the next morning Jay was sitting on the back doorsteps when I came out and he said Sis, come here, I want you to tell me what that man said to you and when I told him he said if you meet him any where, don't even speak to him, just ignore him. So the next time I spoke to him I was fifteen years old. One day I was at a friends house and she said Pearl, would you go with me to see a young lady who has just lost her baby, so we
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