Well, it seems it happened many a year ago; Mama knowed the woman that was married to that man. I don't know of his real name; they called him Lightin' as a nickname, 'cause he moved about so slow. Well, I don't know for sure but that he took to drinkin' and then to beatin' on his wife. She was a real good person and says she loved her husband, so she never did nothin' to make him stop.

His drinkin', it got worse and worse, till one day he up and left. Well, nobody knowed where he got off to, but some say he drowned in the river 'cause he couldn't swim. Shortly after that, his wife, she took real sick. She said she had the high fever, but everybody knowed she was sick in the heart 'cause that man of hers, he was gone. I don't understand why she could worry herself sick over a man that drunk most of the time-even on Sundays-and beat her up till she was black and blue and could hardly walk. But black womans-they's that way about their mans. Well, Lightnin', he never come back to her, and by and by she died. Some folks say it was out-and-out murder 'cause he was what drove her to that grave. But nobody done nothin' about that 'cause couldn't nobody prove it.

Then that man, he come home one day lookin' to see where his wife was gone. Nobody done told him she was dead most 'cause of him. He didn't believe it when he found out she was dead. He said somebody killed her or took her and hid her out from him. Everybody was real scared of him-and he found her grave. Nobody knows for sure, but some folks say he dug her up to see for hisself that nobody was lying to him. He found her body and bones and all and then killed himself. Some folks say he died from grief, but I think he drunk hisself to death.

And to this very day, you can hear him a'beatin' on her some nights and you can hear her screamin' and moanin' cause their souls they ain't rested. Don't nobody go by there at night if you can help it, for that man, he's liable to chop you up or something else real bad. And if you do has to walk by there, don't never dare look at the graves, but look straight ahead and walk on by real fast.

I remember one night when we was kids, we got real brave and decided to walk by there, and sure enough you could hear that poor old woman screamin' but you had to listen real close. We was scared half to death. I had the shakes for a week and plenty of nightmares too. I ain't never once gone by there again walkin' at night-and I don't let my kids neither.

Some people now say it ain't true, but it is, 'cause I heard it myself. It's just like some folks not believin' in the good Lord, but it's true too, 'cause I seen him once. But that's another story, and you know about that already anyhow. Well, that's the story.