"When I'm 'bout seventeen I marries a gal while master on drunk spell. Master he run her off, and I slips off at night to see her, but he finds it out. He takes a big, long knife and cuts her head plumb off, and ties a great, heavy weight to her and makes me throw her in the river. Then he puts me in chains and every night he come give me a whippin', for long time." ~ Excerpt from the Narrative of Frank Bell, in Madisonville Texas, 86 years old at the time of this interview, circa 1937.