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34 Ha r r i et Tu b man as Vi llai n: A Gh ost Sto ry Willie De La Beckwith There was a scary ol’ black woman ghost that carried a shotgun and snuck into the quarters at night to steal little picaninnies an’ field hands. She carried each one of ’em down to the creek and covered ’em with mud to hide their scent, then sang a magic song that made ’em all invisible. They ran away so quickly even the bloodhounds couldn’t catch ’em. She came back night after night until she’d stole nearly every nigger in the quarters and come spring there was hardly anybody to break the ground and drop the seeds. In the summer there was almost nobody to chop the cotton when harvest time come, the poor old farmer and his wife picked what they’d planted by themselves, worked every day ’til sundown and even took supper in the fields. They were both found on Christmas day, bent over and frozen to a cotton bush, fingers and hands cut up and still bleeding, after working themselves to death. ...

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