"I got to burn these numbers in your shoulder boy. Got to. That's my job. Here all this time you been layin' up in the barn, huggin' on Fat Flore an' eatin' corn cakes while us niggers be out here eatin' sour grain and strainin' in the cotton fields. Now you gonna know what it's like to sweat and strain and hurt."

"It ain't my fault that they made you work so hard out here, Pritchard," I said. "I din't want them to do that to you."

"I seen you laughin' at me, boy. While I was carryin' them bags'a cotton, while I be hobblin' around on this broke down leg."

He took a step toward me and I took a step back.

"I never laughed at you," I pleaded. "If I laughed it's just because I was playin'."

"You ain't gonna play no more, niggah," he said as he crept forward. "After I burn these here numbers inta yo' flesh you gonna know what it's like to be a nigger-slave workin' sunup to sundown until you vomit up your guts and die."

As he said these words he took a quick step and threw the crutch at me. I tried to get out of the way but that twirling stick got between my legs and I went down. Before I could get to my feet again Pritchard was on me. He got both of my wrists together in one big hand and he lifted me up off of the ground. When he pulled me up next to his face I could smell his rotten breath.

"Fma burn that numbah so far into you," he said, "that after you die they gonna find it burnt into bone."

He dragged me back across the room and no matter how hard I struggled I couldn't break his grip.

When we got back to the iron stove he dropped his crutch and pressed the iron, which had cooled, back into the red embers.

"Please don't do this to me," I begged. "Please don't. Please."

"Fma burn you good, boy," was his reply. "Fma burn you good."

I screamed and pulled and kicked and bit trying to get away from that iron. But try as I would Pritchard got me down on the floor, pulled off my burlap shirt, and held my arms down with his knees. Then he pulled that poker out of the fire and said, "Here it come," and then I felt a pain that I had never imagined a person could feel. It went all the way through me and I yelled and then I passed out for a short while.