aged that she said
to my wife: "I thought you were a Christian. You'll never see your God."
She seemed to think that because Matilda had sought freedom she had
committed a great sin.

* * * * *

INCIDENTS.

Ever since the beginning of the war, and the slaves had heard that
possibly they might some time be free, they seemed unspeakably happy.
They were afraid to let the masters know that they ever thought of such
a thing, and they never dreamed of speaking about it except among
themselves. They were a happy race, poor souls! notwithstanding their
down-trodden condition. They would laugh and chat about freedom in their
cabins; and many a little rhyme about it originated among them, and was
softly sung over their work. I remember a song that Aunt Kitty, the cook
at Master Jack's, used to sing. It ran something like this:

There'll be no more talk about Monday, by and by,
But every day will be Sunday, by and by.

The old woman was singing, or rather humming, it one day, and old lady
McGee heard her. She was busy getting her dinner, and I suppose never
realized she was singing such an incendiary piece, when old Mrs. McGee
broke in upon her: "Don't think you are going to be free; you darkies
were made by God and ordained to wait upon us." Those passages of
Scripture which refer to master and servants were always cited to us
when we heard the Word preached; and they were interpreted as meaning
that the relation of master and slave was right and proper--that they
were rightly the masters and we the slaves.

I remember, not long after Jeff Davis had been elected president of the
Confederacy, that I happened to hear old Master Jack talking to some of
the members of the family about the war, etc. All at once the old man
broke out: "And what do you think! that rascal, Abraham Lincoln, has
called for 300,000 more men. What is Jeff Davis doin'-doin'?" He talked
on, and seemed so angry that he gave no one a chance to answer: "Jeff
Davis is a grand rascal-rascal," said he, "he ought to go into the field
himself." At first all the Southerners were jubilant over Davis; but as
they were losing so, and the Unionists gaining, they grew angry and
denounced him oftentimes in unsparing terms.

* * * * *

UNION RAID AT MASTER'S FARM.

During the time the Union headquarters were at Helena, a Union gun-boat
came down the river as far as Boliva, and stopped at Miles