ant a thousand dollars, and then old Doctor
say he will bind me out to him.

I run away from the house and went out to the cabin whar my mammy and
pappy was, but they tell me to go on back to the Big House 'cause
maybe I am just scared. But about that time old Doctor and the man
come and old Doctor make me go with the man. We go in his buggy a long
ways off to the South, and after he stop two or three night at peoples
houses and put me out to stay with the niggers he come to his own
house. I ask him how far it is back home and he say about a hundred
miles or more, and laugh, and ask me if I know how far that is.

I wants to know if I can go back to my mammy some time, and he say
"Sho', of course you can, some of these times. You don't belong to me,
Jo, I'se jest your boss and not your master."

He live in a big old rottendy house, but he aint farming none of the
land. Jest as soon as he git home he go off again, and sometimes he
only come in at night for a little while.

His wife's name was Kate and his name was Mr. John. I was there about
a week before I found out they name was Deeson. They had two children,
a girl about my size name Joanna like me, and a little baby boy name
Johnny. One day Mistress Kate tell me I the only nigger they got. I
been thinking maybe they had some somewhar on a plantation, but she
say they aint got no plantation and they aint been at that place very
long either.

That little girl Joanna and me kind of take up together, and she was a
mighty nice mannered little girl, too. Her mammy raised her good. Her
mammy was mighty sickly all the time, and that's the reason they bind
me to do the work.

Mr. John was in some kind of business in the War too, but I never see
him with no soldier clothes on but one time. One night he come in with
them on, but the next morning he come to breakfast in jest his plain
clothes again. Then he go off again.

I sho' had a hard row at that house. It was old and rackady, and I had
to scrub off the staircase and the floors all the time, and git the
breakfast for Mistress Kate and the two children. Then I could have my
own breakfast in the kitchen. Mistress Kate always get the supper,
though.

Some days she go off with the two children and leave me at the house
all day by myself, and I think maybe I run off, but I didn't know whar
to go.

After I been at that place two years Mr. John come home and stay. He
done some kind of trading in Jackson, Mississippi, an