veral hours came to a little hut which my mother had
secured on a plantation. We had no more than reached the place, and
made a little fire, when master's two sons rode up and demanded that
the children be returned. My mother refused to give us up. Upon her
offering to go with them to the Yankee headquarters to find out if it
were really true that all negroes had been made free, the young men
left, and troubled us no more.

The cabin that was now our home was made of logs. It had one door, and
an opening in one wall, with an inside shutter, was the only window.
The door was fastened with a latch. Our beds were some straw.

There were six in our little family; my mother, Caroline, Henry, two
other children that my mother had brought with her upon her return,
and myself.

The man on whose plantation this cabin stood, hired my mother as
cook, and gave us this little home. We children used to sell
blueberries and plums that we picked. One day the man on whom we
depended for our home and support, left. Then my mother did washing by
the day, for whatever she could get. We were sent to get cold victuals
from hotels and such places. A man wanting hands to pick cotton, my
brother Henry and I were set to help in this work. We had to go to the
cotton field very early every morning. For this work, we received
forty cents for every hundred pounds of cotton we picked.

Caroline was hired out to take care of a baby.

In 1866, another man hired the plantation on which our hut stood, and
we moved into Clayton, to a little house my mother secured there. A
rich lady came to our house one day, looking for some one to take care
of her little daughter. I was taken, and adopted into this family.
This rich lady was Mrs. E. M. Williams, a music teacher, the wife of a
lawyer. We called her "Mis' Mary."

Some rich people in Clayton who had owned slaves, opened the Methodist
church on Sundays, and began the work of teaching the negroes. My new
mistress sent me to Sunday school every Sunday morning, and I soon got
so that I could read. Mis' Mary taught me every day at her knee. I
soon could read nicely, and went through Sterling's Second Reader,
and then into McGuthrie's Third Reader. The first piece of poetry I
recited in Sunday school was taught to me by Mis' Mary during the
week. Mis' Mary's father-in-law, an ex-judge, of Clayton, Alabama,
heard me recite it, and thought it was wonderful. It was this:

"I am glad to see you, little b