in
reaching the mill, and by the time I got my corn ground and reached
home it would be far into the night. The road was a lonely one, and
often led through dense forests. I was always frightened. The woods
were said to be full of soldiers who had deserted from the army, and I
had been told that the first thing a deserter did to a Negro boy when
he found him alone was to cut off his ears. Besides, when I was late
in getting home I knew I would always get a severe scolding or a
flogging.

I had no schooling whatever while I was a slave, though I remember on
several occasions I went as far as the schoolhouse door with one of my
young mistresses to carry her books. The picture of several dozen boys
and girls in a schoolroom engaged in study made a deep impression upon
me, and I had the feeling that to get into a schoolhouse and study in
this way would be about the same as getting into paradise.

So far as I can now recall, the first knowledge that I got of the fact
that we were slaves, and that freedom of the slaves was being
discussed, was early one morning before day, when I was awakened by my
mother kneeling over her children and fervently praying that Lincoln
and his armies might be successful, and that one day she and her
children might be free. . . .

I cannot remember a single instance during my childhood or early
boyhood when our entire family sat down to the table together, and
God's blessing was asked, and the family ate a meal in a civilized
manner. On the plantation in Virginia, and even later, meals were
gotten by the children very much as dumb animals get theirs. It was a
piece of bread here and a scrap of meat there. It was a cup of milk at
one time and some potatoes at another. Sometimes a portion of our
family would eat out of the skillet or pot, while some one else would
eat from a tin plate held on the knees, and often using nothing but the
hands with which to hold the food. When I had grown to sufficient
size, I was required to go to the "big house" mealtimes to fan the
flies from the table by means of a large set of paper fans operated by
a pulley. Naturally much of the conversation of the white people
turned upon the subject of freedom and the war, and I absorbed a good
deal of it. I remember that at one time I saw two of my young
mistresses and some lady visitors eating ginger-cakes, in the yard. At
that time those cakes seemed to me to be absolutely the most tempting
and desirable