oughter be ashamed of
hisself. Dr. Mathis splintered my hand and doctored it till it got well.

"Mr. Field Mathis was a merchant. They moved to Colt, Arkansas at the
beginning of the War, Dr. and Mr. Field Mathis both. We come on the
train and steamboats. It was so new to me I had a fine time but that is
all I can tell about it. Mr. Field was cross with his wife. She was
fairly good to me. I had all the cooking, washing and ironing to do
before I left there.

"After we come to Arkansas I never got to see my sister. My husband was
a good scholar. He could write. He wrote and wrote back to find my
sister and mother but they never answered my letters. I asked everybody
that come from there about my sisters and mother but never have heard a
word. I slept on a pallet on the floor nearly all my life. I had a
little bed at Mr. Henderson's.

"I didn't know it was freedom till one day when I was about fourteen or
fifteen years old--judging from my size and what I done. I went off to a
spring to wash. I had one pot of clothes to boil and another just out of
the pot to rub and rinse. A girl come to tell me Mrs. Field had company
and wanted me to come cook dinner. I didn't go but I told her I would be
on and cook dinner soon as I could turn loose the washing. There was two
colored girls and a white girl could done the cooking but I was a good
cook. The girl put on the water for me to scald the chickens soon as she
went to the house. When I got there Mrs. Field Mathis had a handful of
switches corded together to beat me. I picked up the pan of boiling
water to scald the chickens in. She got scared of me, told me to put the
pan down. I didn't do it. I didn't aim to hurt her. I wouldn't throwed
that boiling water on nothing. She sent to the store for her husband. He
come and I told him how it was about the clothes and three girls there
could cook without me. He got mad at her and said: 'Mary Agnes, she is
as free as you are or I am. I'm not going to ever hurt her again and you
better not.' That is the first I ever heard about freedom. It had been
freedom a long time. I don't know how long then.

"I stayed on, washed out the clothes and strung them up that evening. I
ironed all the clothes and cooked the rest of the week. Mr. Field got me
a good home with some colored folks. He told me if I would go there he
never would let nobody bother me and he never would mistreat me no more.
I worked some for them but they paid me. She ought t