I was born in Alabama, in Fayette Co., in 1858. My mother was named Esaline Riley and my father was named Thad Mills . My sisters were named Ella and Ann and Lou and Maggie and Matildy , and the youngest one was Easter . I had two brothers Richard and Ben . Bob Lebruo was my great-uncle and for a long while he ran a freight wagon from Salt Lakes to this country. That was the only way of getting salt to Texas, this part of Texas, I mean, because Salt Lakes is down east of Corpus, close to the bay. My uncle was finally killed by the Indians in Frio County. In Alabama we lived on Patterson's place. The grandmother of all these Pattersons was Betsy Patterson and we lived on her estate. My mother wove the cloth. It kep' her pretty busy, but she was stout and active. My uncle was blacksmith and made all the plows. too. We had a picket house, one room, and two beds built in corners. My mother done the cookin' up at the house because she was workin' up there all the time, weavin' cloth, and of course we ate up there. The rest of 'em didn't like it much because we ate up there, but her work was there. I guess you never did see a loom? It used to keep me pretty busy fillin' quills. She made this cloth  this four-dollar-a-yard, four-leaf jean cloth, all wool, of course.

I was too little to work durin' the war; of course we packed a little water and got a little wood. I was goin' to tell you about this scar on my finger. I was holdin' a stick for another little fellow to cut wood and he nearly cut my finger off. That sure woke me up. They had field work on the place, but a family by the name of Knowles did the farm work. I worked stock nearly all my life. It used to be all the work there was. I think my mother was allowed to make a little money on this cloth business. That is, cloth she made on the outside. And she was the only one of the slaves that could read. I don't know that they cared anything about her readin', but they didn't want her to read it to the rest of 'em. I never earned no money; I was too little. We called Old Man Patterson 'master' and we called Mrs. Patterson 'mistuss'. I don't know what the other slaves had to eat  they cooked for themselves, but we had jes' what the Patterson's had to eat. On Sunday mornin' we had flour bread. Always glad to see Sunday mornin' come. We made the co'n meal right on the place on these old hand mills that you turn with both hands like this. When the co'n jes' fust began to get ha'd, they would grate that; but when it got ha'd, they would grind it. We always had meat the year 'round. We called hogshead cheese 'souse'. But we never did make sausage then. It was a long time before we had a sausage mill.. Oh, sho' we made 'chittlin's' (chitterlings). We make them even now. Why mama always takes the paunch and fixes it up ever' time we kill hogs. We dried beef, strung it out, and put it on the line. When we got ready to cook it, we'd take it and beat it and make hash and fry it or boil it. We had lots of deer and turkeys, quail and. 'possums, but they never did do much eatin' rabbits. I didn't eat no 'possums and I didn't eat no honey; there was sever'l things I didn't like. I like straight beef, turkeys, quail, and squirrel is mighty fine eatin'. I set traps and would ketch quail. Armadillos are pretty good meat, but we didn't eat 'em then. Why, I was grown before I ever saw an armadillo. I don't know where they immigrated from. Yes'm, I think they come from Mexico; they must surely have because they wasn't any here when I was a young boy. We used to see 'em in shows before they ever got to be around here. I wore a shirt that hit me down about my knees. When my mother made my pants, she made 'em all in one piece, sleeves 'n all. The fust shoes I ever had, my uncle tanned the leather and made 'em. I guess I was about six years old. He made the pegs, tanned the leather, and made the shoes. It taken 18 months to tan the leather. Bark tanned. Huh, I c'n smell that old tannin' vat now. People nowadays, they're livin' too easy. 'Fraid to let a drop of water fall on 'em Ever' day was Sunday with me then. After we got up any size, they put us to work, but we didn't work on Sunday. After I got to be a cowboy, of course, they didn't have no Sum ay then. I was twenty-two when I fust married. It was in Medine County. Her name was Ada Coston . She ha don a white dress, draggin' the groun' in the back, what you used to call these trains. I remember when they wore these hoops, too. We married about 7 o'clock in the evenin'. I had on one of these frock-tail coats, black broadcloth suit. I had on good shop-made shoes. We had better shoes then than we ever have now. We had a supper and then danced. Had a big weddin' cake  great big white one, had a hole in the center, all iced all over. I think my auntie made that cake, or my cousin. We had coffee, but I never did drink whiskey in my life. I think they had chickens  if I remember right, chicken and dressin'. Had a whole lot better to eat then than I can get now. We danced all night. I was at a weddin' where they danced three days and nights, and I tell you where it was. Have you been down to Old Bill Thomas ? You have?

Well, that was where it took place. Bill and Ellen married when I was about twelve years old, and I think they danced three days and nights, and maybe longer. Now, if they didn't tell you that, I could'a told you if I had been there. We danced these old square dances, what you call the Virginia Reel, and the round dances like the Schottische, Polka, waltzes, and all them. I was a dancin' fool, wanted to dance all the time. I inherited that from my mother. She was a terrible dancer. Old Man George Patterson was a very tall and a dark complected man. He was a kind old man. He was good to my mother and all those that come from Alabama. The old mistuss would whip me, but he didn't. The grandchillun and I could fight all over the house; he would jes' get out of the way. But she would get on us once in awhile. The worst whippin' she ever give me was about some sheep. They had a cane patch down close to the sheep pen and I went down there and got me some cane and stripped it off and I was runnin' 'round down there whippin' the sheep with that stalk of cane and she found me down there and took me to the house and learned me better. They never did whip my mother. I know they whipped two others. Two was all I ever knew of 'em whippin'. Dillard , he married the oldest Patterson girl, and my uncle, he borrowed an auger from Mr. Dillard to make a frame. When dinner time came, he laid it down and went to his dinner. When he got back, this bit was broken and he went end tells him (Dillard ) and they came down to make a search about who had used it. They found that another colored man got it and used it to bore some holes with and broke it, so he took it back and laid it down and never said nothin'. Them days, a thing like that steel bit was awful high. They laid 'im over a log and whipped 'im and whipped his wife for not tellin' it when they asked her. They had a boy countin' the licks, but I don't know how many he got. They had me down there too, and I was ready to get away from there. I think they had us down there to show what we would get if we didn't do right. The old lady, the mistuss, she was pretty high-tempered  her head kind of bounced, like that  when she got mad. She was slender and tall. I think they lived in a log house; I don't remember much what kind of house it was. I know my mother weaved cloth in one part of it. I don't think the field was very large on that place. I often wanted to go back and see it. It was right on the Sabinal, right opposite Knowlton Creek.

I have heard my mother tell about slaves bein' sold. It was kinda like a fair they have now. They would go there, and some of 'em sold for a thousand dollars. They said something about puttin' 'em on a block; the highest bidder, you know, would buy 'em. I don't know how they got 'em there, for they wasn't much of a way for 'em to go 'cept by oxen, you know. It was back in Alabama where she saw all that. Of course, there was more of that down in Mississippi than Alabama, but she didn't know nothin' about that. I remember the cotton they raised on the Patterson place. They picked the seeds out with their fingers and made cloth out of it. They would take coarse wool  not merino wool, for that was too fine --- and use the coarse wool for a filler. That was what they would make me do, pick the seed out of that cotton to keep me out of mischief. I remember that pretty well. Kep' me tied down, and I would beg the old man to let me go, and when he did, if I got into anything, I was back there pickin' seeds pretty quick. We would get up about daybreak. They might have got up before I knew anything about it, but sometimes I got up with my mother, What little school I went to was German, at D'Hanis and Castroville. I went to the priest at D'Hanis and to the sisters at Castroville. No education to amount to anything. That was after we were freed. I went to school at the same time that Johnny Ney and his sister, Mary , went to school. I would like to see Johnny and talk to him now. Your grandmother and her sisters and brothers went to that school and I remember all of 'em well. One of them boys, George , was killed and scalped by the Indians, and that was caused by them boys playin' and soarin' each other all the time. He was with them Rothe boys, and they always had an Indian scare up someway to have fun with each other, especially to scare George . So when they did discover the Indians and hollered to George , he wouldn't run, because they had fooled 'im so much. So the Indians slipped up on him and killed 'im. Yes, I knew all the Millers better than I did nearly any of the rest of the old settlers up there. Aunt Dorcas , that was George's mother, she nursed me through the measles. I was awful sick, and when my mother heard it and come up after me, she told my mother to leave me there, she would take care of me. I tell you she took good care of me too. But that was after freedom.

You see, my mother didn't want to come to Texas. She laid out nearly two years before they got hold of her and got her to come to Texas. Alabama wasn't thickly settled then. There was bottoms of trees and wild fruit she could eat. She stayed out by herself, and would come and get something to eat and leave again. But Patterson told her if she would come to Texas she would be treated right and not be whipped or nothin' like that. And so far as I know, she never was whipped. He kep' his word with her. She was useful and they needed her. She wove the cloth and was such a good worker. The first cow we ever owned, we cut cockleburrs out of a field of about seven or eight acres. Mr. John Ware gave her a cow to cut the burrs out. After the war, my uncle carried my mother and his wife and chillen away, and when they started with Margaret   she was his niece and my cousin  they overtook 'em and took Margaret back. She was house girl, she didn't do nothin' but work in the house. I don't know whether they ever paid her anything or not. They needed her to wait on the old lady. I don't know how that come about when they told 'em they was free. I don't know whether mother read it in the paper or he come and told 'em. We went on, and came right on up the same creek to a place where a man had a ranch by the name of Roney . It was an old abonded (abandoned) place, and we didn't have anything to eat. My uncle got out and rustled around to get some bread stuff and got some co'n, but while he was gone was when we suffered for something to eat. We didn't have anything to kill wild game with. We would fish a little. When he left he went up in the Davenport settlement, up there about where your grandfather lived. We got milk and careless weeds, but that was all we had, and we were awful glad to see the co'n come. And that was my first taste of javelin (javelina). It evidently was an old male javelin, for I couldn't eat it. I don't think my uncle ever stole anyting in his life. I was with him all the time and I know he didn't. My mother, she went over to Davenports' and my uncle got out and rustled to see where he could get something to do. So they moved up in the Sabinal Canyon and he got on Old Man Joel Fenley's place. Old Man 'Parson ' Monk , I think, was the first person I ever heard preach.

 That was down here in the Patterson settlement (formerly a settlement six miles south of the present town of Sabinal). The preachin' was right there on the place. I joined the church after I was grown, but that was the cullud church, then. My mother she joined the white church. She joined the Hardshell Baptist. She never did live in any colony and the cullud church was too far. They had lots of camp meetin's. I never was at but one camp meetin' that I know of. They would preach and shout and have a good time and have plenty to eat. That was what most of 'em went for. But the churches then seemed to be more serious than they are now. They preached the 'altar.' You know, like anyone wanted to join the church, they was a mourner, you see, seekin' for religion. And they would sing and pray with 'em till they professed the religion. I had a sister that never went to a meetin' that she didn't get to shoutin' and shout to the end of the sermon. I always tried to get out of the way before I joined because if she got to me, she would beat on me and talk to me. We always tried to get to her, if she had her baby in her arms, because she would jes' throw that baby away when the Spirit moved her. 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  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 might 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 Kanady (Kennedy ) married Malinda 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 Ruthledges . 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. I know when we used, in the winter, 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 Louisiana 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 , Theodere , 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. When we camped and killed a yearlin' the leaf fat and liver was one of the first things we would cook. When they would start in to gather cattle to send to Kansas, they would ride out in the herd and pick out a fat calf, and they would get the 'fleece' and liver and broil the ribs. The meat that was cut off the rigs was called the fleece. It was a terr'ble waste, for many a time, the hams wasn't even cut out of the hide, jes' left there. Old Man Alec Rutledge used to say, when they would throw out bread and meat, he would say, 'I'll tell you, Tom , he will have to walk alone sometimes because this willful waste will make woeful wants.' He was talking about his brother  they was two of 'em, and sure 'nough, his brother finally lost all his cattle, quit the business, and never had nothin' left. There would be an awful lot of good meat wasted, and now we are payin' for it. The first fence I ever seen wasn't any larger then this addition here, and it was put up out of pickets. The Mexkins used to build lots of fences and we got the idea from them, mostly on these old-timey stake-and-rider fences. It was an awful pasture when they had eight mile of fence. The say they made the field fences was nothin' but brush. I remember when I was a little fellow at John Kanady's (Kennedy's ), George Johnson would come over and stay with his sister, Mrs. Kanady , and he would keep the cattle out of the field. One day, he came there and put me on his horse. He had loosened up his girt, and I got out there a little ways and one of the cows turned back. The horse was a regular old cow pony and when that cow turned back, the old horse turned just as quick and the saddle slipped and I stayed there. Oh, pshaw! they turn so quick you have to be on the lookout. You have to watch the horse as well as the cow. Some of them horses get pretty smart. One time they were cuttin' cattle and a fellow brought a cow to the edge of the herd and the cow turned back and when she did, the horse cut back too and left him there. When he went from under him, that fellow's spurs left a mark clear across the saddle as he went over. It was my saddle he was ridin' and that mark never did leave it, where the spurs cut across it. We've done some ridin' even after my wife, here, and I were married. She's seen 'em breakin' horses and all that pitchin' and bawlin'. But, I never was no hand to show off. If I kep' my seat, that was all I wanted. You see lots of fellows ridin' just to show Off, but I never was for anything like that. No, I never did go up on the trail. I've helped prepare the herd to take. Usually, there would be one owner takin' his cattle up on the trail. They had no place to hold the cattle, only under herd. Usually, they would start with a thousand or fifteen hundred head, but they didn't put 'em all together till they got away out on the divide. They would have 'em shaped up as they gathered 'em and Jes' hold what they wanted to send. It didn't take so many men, either, because they all understood their business. I was jes' thinkin' about when Mr. Demp Fenley and Rutledge was here. They had about nine hundred head of cattle. We brought 'em right in below Pearsall, right about the Shiner ranch, and delivered dem there. But before we got there at a little creek they called Pato, they was hardly any place to bed the cattle because they was so much pear. Mr. Rutledge and I always bedded the cattle down, and then I would go on the last relief, usually about the time to get up, anyway. He used me all the time when they would get ready to go to camp in the evenin', and we'd spread 'em out and let 'em graze before beddin' 'em down. Sometimes he would give me a motion to come over there, and I knew that meant an animal to throw. He always got me to do the ropin' if one broke out. Well, we was comin on with those cattle and they was a steer that gave us trouble all the time. As soon as you got away, he would walk out of the herd. Well, we got the cattle all bedded down and they were quiet, but that steer walked out. I was ridin' Mr. Fenley's dun horse, and Mr. Rutledge says to me, 'I tell you what we'll do. We'll ketch that steer out here and give 'im a good whippin'.' I says, 'We'll get into trouble, too. Well, he was to hold 'im away from the herd and I was to rope 'im, but the steer run in front of him and out-run 'im. If he would have run in behind him, I would 'a caught 'im, but that steer beat 'im to the herd and run right into the middle of 'em. And did he stampede 'em! Those cattle run right into the camp, and the boys all scramblin' into the wagon and gettin' on their horses without their boots on. One steer fell and rolled right under the chuck wagon. You know we run those cattle all night, tryin' to hold 'em. It was a pear flat there, and next mornin' that pear was all beat down flat on the ground. They sure did run, and all because of that foolishness. Mr. Rutledge got to me and told me not to tell it, and I don't reckin to this day anybody knows what done that. I never told you about the panther about to get on to me, did I? Well, we was out on the Rio Grande, about thirty-one or thirtytwo miles beyond Carrizo. It was at the Las Islas (The Islands) crossin'. I was about three days behind the outfit when they went out there. That was in July, and they was a law passed that we had to quit wearin' our guns the first day of July and hang 'am on the ho'n of our saddle, When I got to the outfit, the boys was gettin' pretty tired herdin'. They had to bring 'em out about six miles to grass and to this little creek. We would put 'em in the pen at night and feed 'em hay. We were waitin' there for them to deliver some cattle out of Mexico. The Mexkin told me they was somethin' out there where they were herdin' sheep that was scarin' the sheep out of the pen at night. I had seen some bobcats, but I laid down under one of these huisache trees and went to sleep. I had my pistol on and was layin' there and about two o'clock, I woke up. I turned over and rested myself on my elbow and looked off there about 12 feet from me and there stood a big old female panther. She was kind of squattin' and lookin' right at me. I reached right easy and got my Winchester that was layin' beside me and I shot her right between the eyes. Why, I had one of her claws here for a long time. She had some young ones somewhere. I imagined, though, she was goin' to jump right on me. It wasn't no good feelin', I know. She was an awful large one. Oh, my goodness! I have seen lobos, eight or ten in a bunch. They're sure mean. I've seen 'em have cattle rounded up like a bunch of cow hands. If you heard a cow or yearlin' holler at night, you could go next mornin' and sure find where they had killed her. They would go right into the cow or calf and eat its kidney fat first thing. I tell you, one sure did scare me one time. I was out ridin', usually ropin' and brandin' calves, and I came across a den in the ground. I heard something whinin' down there in that hole. It was a curiosity to me and I wanted to get one of those little wolf pups. That was what I thought it was. I got down there and reached in there and got one of those little fellows. They was lovos (lobos). They are usually gray, but he was still back. They are black at first, then they turn gray. He was a little bit of a fellow. Well, I got him out and the old lovo wolf run right at me, snappin' her teeth, and my horse jerked back and came near gettin' away. But I hung to my wolf and got to my horse and got on and left there. I didn't have nothin' to kill her with. I was jes' a boy, then. I took that pup and give it to Mrs. Jim Reedes , down on the Hondo, and she kep' it till it began eatin' chickens. I had a bear scare, too. That was in '87, about fifty years ago. Well, Ira Wheat was sheriff at Leakey in Edwards County, then. I went down there, and I was ridin' a horse I broke for a sheriff in Kerr County. I came to Leakey to see Wheat --- you see they was burnin' cattle (running the brands) all over that country then. As I was ridin' along, I seen some buzzards and I rode out there. Somethin' had killed a hog and eat on it. I knowed it was a bear afterwards, but then I went on down to Leakey and started back, I got up on the divide, at the head of a little canyon and I seen those buzzards again. I seen two black things and I jes' thought to myself them hogs was comin' back and eatin' on that deed hog. I rode up and seen that it was two bears and I made a lunge at 'em and the old bear run off and the little cub ran up a tree. I thought, 'I'll ketch you, you little rascal.' So I tied my horse and I went up the tree after the cub and when I was near 'im, he squalled jes' like a child. I tell you, when it squalled that way, here came that old bear and begin snuffin' around the tree. My horse was jes' rearin' and tryin' to break loose out there. I tell you, when I did get down there and