all my life, before nor since!

He yelled in at mammy to "git them children together and git up to my
house before I beat you and all of them to death!" Mammy began to cry
and plead that she didn't know anything, but he acted like he was
going to shoot sure enough, so we all ran to mammy and started for Mr.
Mose's house as fast as we could trot.

We had to pass all the other Negro cabins on the way, and we could see
that they were all empty, and it looked like everything in them had
been tore up. Straw and corn shucks all over the place, where somebody
had tore up the mattresses, and all the pans and kettles gone off the
outside walls where they used to hang them.

At one place we saw two Negro boys loading some iron kettles on a
wagon, and a little further on was some boys catching chickens in a
yard, but we could see all the Negroes had left in a big hurry.

I asked mammy where everybody had gone and she said, "Up to Mr. Mose's
house, where we are going. He's calling us all in."

"Will pappy be up there too?" I asked her.

"No. Your pappy and your Uncle Hector and your Uncle William and a lot
of other menfolks won't be here any more. They went away. That's why
Mr. Mose is so mad, so if any of you younguns say anything about any
strange men coming to our place I'll break your necks!" Mammy was sure
scared!

We all thought sure she was going to get a big whipping, but Mr. Mose
just looked at her a minute and then told her to get back to the cabin
and bring all the clothes, and bed ticks and all kinds of cloth we had
and come back ready to travel.

"We're going to take all you black devils to a place where there won't
no more of you run away!" he yelled after us. So we got ready to leave
as quick as we could. I kept crying about my pappy, but mammy would
say, "Don't you worry about your pappy, he's free now. Better be
worrying about us. No telling where we all will end up!" There was
four or five Creek families and their Negroes all got together to
leave, with all their stuff packed in buggies and wagons, and being
toted by the Negroes or carried tied on horses, jack asses, mules and
milk cattle. I reckon it was a funny looking sight, or it would be to
a person now; the way we was all loaded down with all manner of
baggage when we met at the old ford across the Arkansas that lead to
the Creek Agency. The Agency stood on a high hill a few miles across
the river from where we lived, but we couldn't see it from our