Yep. One poster says "Miss Mattie" or "Mattie" is the narrator's grandmother, the rag being her headscarf-- it was a custom during the days of slavery that the oldest female relative in a house (often a grandmother) would take a piece of cloth and tie it on her head to ward away duppies. She would pray over the scarf, then give it to her son or son-in-law. This was intended to be a sort of protection against capture by slave catchers kidnapping young men for the plantations. The narrator, a young boy, is telling his mother about his narrow escape, while his father was caught.