Ephraim flagged him down as he got closer.  He stopped and Ephraim, exuding a nervous, timid demeanor, stood beside the
car door.  "Mist Edward, I don't know how to say this, but you've caused my Polly to be with child, this has bout drove me
and my wife, Ada, out of our minds,"  Ephraim looked crazed as he aggressively, out of character, sternly said:  
"I gotta ask--what you spec to do bout it?"  Ephraim was serious and turned icily firm, with an uncompromising tone in his
last words it shocked Edward, he immediately feared for his life.
"Watch how you speak to me Boy--step your dumb-ass back."  Edward stared, quickly pulling a small pistol from the pocket of
his vest, pointing it at Ephraim's nose.  Ephraim jumped back from his car, and Edward sped off.
                                       . . . . .
The next week, the Jackson and Natchez papers told of a white sharecropper, who lived close to Ephraim, and Ada Carter
named Charlie Ruggles.  Charlie, his wife, and three son's had died of arsenic poisoning, after an autopsy, it was discovered
arsenic had been put in their well, in the drinking water.
After two weeks of intense investigation, the sheriff caught a break finding an anonymous letter on his desk.  He read the letter:
 "Polly Carter and her Dad, Ephraim, poisoned Charlie Ruggles and his family."  This letter was given to the press and word
covered Adams County within two days.  Neither the sheriff, nor anyone else seemed to notice the letter was left by an
anonymous person--to them, it simply "solved the mystery."
The rumor response to the letter caused the people to immediately be "up in arms,"  laying for Ephraim Carter and his
daughter, Polly.  During the morning, the crowd in City Park had steadily increased.  People were fired up after eating picnic
lunches, listening to the Klan Leaders as they stood on the outside of the Park Gazebo expounding their vile hate rhetoric
against Blacks who would shamefully poison their neighbor's water.  The Klan leader's pompous arrival had been dramatic to
the crowd as he was escorted by a group of at least forty hooded and sheeted men on horseback, several were Stratford's.  The
Klan Leaders proudly led the crowd from the Park to the Natchez Police Department.
The deputy drove up to the precinct in the Model T, carrying Ephraim and his daughter.  The deputy didn't resist as he was
rushed by the angry mob, led by the Klan.  He didn't interfere as Ephraim and Polly were rudely grabbed from the rear
seat of the Model T.  They were put in another car and carried to an area known as the Klan rally area, where a line of
willow trees grew forming the entrance, opening to a circle with the forest growing up-to and forming the perimeter of the
circle.  
The North border close to the entrance included four large Poplar trees used for traditional Klan hangings.
Men on horses and several cars loaded with men and their families of different social classes, brought their children to witness
the lynching.  One man used his new Eastman Kodak roll film for pictures of the lynched pair he would turn into postcards,
and sell at his printing store.  This hanging was a social event.
Ephraim yelled out several times, trying to make himself heard over the noise of the crowd, about how Edward Stratford's
involvement had helped cause this misunderstanding.  No one heard or cared, and his voice was drowned out by the loud
frenzied buzz of the crowd, some laughing, and many making threatening statements.  Polly, terrified, began screaming, she
cried, cringed, and begged the hooded men, "please let me and Daddy go."
Finally, after the chaos of the unruly lynch mob's members trying to out-yell each other, someone started singing, and the
crowd joined in unifying the endeavor of anarchy, they sang as the two were made ready for the hanging.  Rock of a-ges, cleft
for me, Let me hide myself in thee:  Be of sin, the double cure, cleanse me from its guilt and pow'r.  Let the wa-ter and
the blood, from thy  wounded side which flowed.   
Ephraim and Polly were lifted by four men onto the backs of mules, with the knotted rope loops being tightened around their
necks--a man with a whip quickly snapped the butts of both mules--the mules jumped forward--Ephraim and Polly were swiftly
yanked off, and left swinging freely by their broken necks, hanged, without a hint of "due process."
Their bodies dangled at the end of the ropes for over an hour while the ceremony of egotistical speeches echoed loud bursts of
racial bigotry.  The crowd laughed and cheered when the man with the whip cut the ropes and the bodies fell.  Hanging ropes
were cut into five-inch lengths, and sold for twenty-five cents, some were willing to pay more for a small piece of clothing, or
body part.  Sometimes a finger or an ear was the souvenir part of choice, it could be carried in a pants-pocket
for easy retrieval to show off.
This debased, dirtied hanging event never made it to the papers.  Individual retelling by the people who viewed it would spread
the propaganda about the two victims.  The spirit of anarchy instigated by swift tongues of gossip and felt by the listeners,
would cause repeats of this scene at future hanging events until the accumulated evil quantity of it was felt by the desensitized
masses.



                                    
Excerpts
ROSA'S  REVENGE