Sitting next to my grandmother, I begged her to tell me one more time about the black panther who came down from the Texas hills and terrorized the young Roberts family.  Big Mother leaned back in her chair, and her eyes stared into the distance as she returned to that night of fear.  Florence Lee Roberts was a young girl, probably about 10 years old, when her father had to leave the family alone while he went away on business.  That night, the panther came down from the mountains in search of food.  Before he reached their house, my great-grandmother, Laura Mullens Roberts, and her four children could hear the animal.  At this point in her story, my grandmother leaned back in her chair, and, as she had done so many times before, screamed a blood chilling scream that amazed and thrilled me every time I heard it.  "That's how it sounded," Big Mother said, "like a woman screaming.  Then, the cat tried to get into our house, and, we all huddled together, so scared, until we didn't hear its scratching and screams anymore."    The year was probably 1900-1904.  My grandmother would have been between 10 and 14 years old.   (Photo source: Wikipedia)