heeks. She explained to us what it all
meant, that this was the day for which she had been so long praying, but
fearing that she would never live to see.

For some minutes there was great rejoicing, and thanksgiving, and wild
scenes of ecstasy. But there was no feeling of bitterness. In fact,
there was pity among the slaves for our former owners. The wild
rejoicing on the part of the emancipated coloured people lasted but for
a brief period, for I noticed that by the time they returned to their
cabins there was a change in their feelings. The great responsibility of
being free, of having charge of themselves, of having to think and plan
for themselves and their children, seemed to take possession of them. It
was very much like suddenly turning a youth of ten or twelve years
out into the world to provide for himself. In a few hours the great
questions with which the Anglo-Saxon race had been grappling for
centuries had been thrown upon these people to be solved. These were
the questions of a home, a living, the rearing of children, education,
citizenship, and the establishment and support of churches. Was it any
wonder that within a few hours the wild rejoicing ceased and a feeling
of deep gloom seemed to pervade the slave quarters? To some it seemed
that, now that they were in actual possession of it, freedom was a more
serious thing than they had expected to find it. Some of the slaves
were seventy or eighty years old; their best days were gone. They had
no strength with which to earn a living in a strange place and among
strange people, even if they had been sure where to find a new place of
abode. To this class the problem seemed especially hard. Besides, deep
down in their hearts there was a strange and peculiar attachment to "old
Marster" and "old Missus," and to their children, which they found it
hard to think of breaking off. With these they had spent in some cases
nearly a half-century, and it was no light thing to think of parting.
Gradually, one by one, stealthily at first, the older slaves began
to wander from the slave quarters back to the "big house" to have a
whispered conversation with their former owners as to the future.

Chapter II. Boyhood Days

After the coming of freedom there were two points upon which practically
all the people on our place were agreed, and I found that this was
generally true throughout the South: that they must change their names,
and that they must leave the old plantati