ther spent much time with the Adventists. It's my belief that what mostlyinfluenced her was that they had even more diet restrictions than she always had taught and practicedwith us. Like us, they were against eating rabbit and pork; they followed the Mosaic dietary laws.
ut this time, my mother began to be visited by some Seventh Day Adventists who had moved intoa house not too far down the road from us. They would talk to her for hours at a time, and leavebooklets and leaflets and magazines for her to read. She read them, and Wilfred, who had started backto school after we had begun to get the relief food supplies, also read a lot. His head was forever insome book.

　ofenough seasoning in their food, and the different way that white people smelled.

　　 Meanwhile, the state Welfare people kept after my mother. By now, she didn't make it any secret thatshe hated them, and didn't want them in her house. But they exerted their right to come, and I havemany, many times reflected upon how, talking to us children, they began to plant the seeds of divisionin our minds. They would ask such things as who was smarter than the other. And they would ask mewhy I was "so different."I think they felt that getting children into foster homes was a legitimate pan of their function, and theresult would be less troublesome, however they went about it.

　　 They ate nothing of the flesh without a split hoof, or that didn't chew a cud. We began to go with mymother to the Adventist meetings that were held further out in the country. For us children, I knowthat the major attraction was the good food they served. But we listened, too. There were a handful ofNegroes, from small towns in the area, but I would say that it was ninety-nine percent white people.　　And when my mother fought them, they went after her-first, through me. I was the first target. I stole;that implied that I wasn't being taken care of by my mother.

　　All of us were mischievous at some time or another, I more so than any of the rest. Philbert and I kepta battle going. And this was just one of a dozen things that kept building up the pressure on mymother.

　　I'm not sure just how or when the idea was first dropped by the Welfare workers that our mother waslosing her mind.

　　But I can distinctly remember hearing "crazy" applied to her by them when they learned that theNegro fanner who was in the next house down the road from us had offered to give us somebutchered pork-a whole pig, maybe even two of them-and she had refused. We all heard them call mymother "crazy" to her face for refusing good meat. It meant nothing to them even when she explainedthat we had never eaten pork, that it was against her religion as a Seventh Day Adventist.

　　They were as vicious as vultures. They had no feelings, understanding, compassion, or respect for mymother. They told us, "She's crazy for refusing food." Right then was when our home, our unity, beganto disintegrate. We were having a hard time, and I wasn't helping. But we could have made it, wecould have stayed together. As bad as I was, as much trouble and worry as I caused my mother, Iloved her.
　Before long, my mo

　　The Adventists felt that we were living at the end of time, that the world soon was coming to an end.

　　But they were the friendliest white people I had ever seen. In some ways, though, we children noticed,and, when we were back at home, discussed, that they were different from us-such as the lack