luff for their own protection.

How Freedom Came

"It was martial law and twelve men went 'round back and forth through
the county. They come down on a Monday, and told the children they
were free and told them they had no more master and mistress and told
them what to call them. No more master and mistress, but Mr. and Mrs.
Brumbaugh. Then they came down and told them that they would have to
marry over again. But my ma never had a chance to see the old man any
more. She didn't marry him over again because he didn't come back to
her. But they advised them to stay with their owners if they wanted
to. They didn't say for none of the slaves to leave their old masters
and go off. We wouldn't have left but that old colored woman beat me
around so all the time, so my mother came after me and took me home
since I wanted to go. The Yankees' officer told her it would be good
to move me from that place so I wouldn't be so badly treated. The
white folks was all right; it was that old colored woman that beat on
me all the time.

Right After Freedom

"Right after freedom my mother married Bill Cardrelle. She moved from
the O'Neil place and went up to a place called the Dr. Jenkins' place.
She kept house for her husband in the new place. I didn't do much
there of anything. After they moved away from there when I was twelve
years old, they taught me to plow (1867). I went to school in the
contraband camp. Mrs. Clay and Mr. Clay, white folks from the North,
were my teachers. At that time, the colored people weren't able to
teach. I went a while to school with them. I got in the second
reader--McGuffy's--that's far as I got.

"I stayed with my mother and stepfather till I was about sixteen years
old. She sent me away to come up here to my father, Sam Lucas. My
oldest brother brought me here and I worked with him two years. Then I
went to a man named Cunningham and stayed with him about six months.
He paid me fifteen dollars a month and my board. He was going to raise
my wages when his wife decided she wanted women to do the work. The
women would slip things away and she wouldn't mention them to her
husband till weeks afterwards. Then long after the time, she would
accuse me. Those women would have the keys. When they went in to get
soap, they would take out a ham and carry it off a little ways and
hide. By the time his wife would tell him about it, you wouldn't be
able to find it nowhere.

"He owed me for a month's work. She