ed when some of
his slaves finally left him. Mother and father stayed till they got a
place of their own. I waited on him as long as he lived. I loved him as
well as I did my daddy. I drove for him and he kept me in his house
with him. He taught me to be honest, to tell the truth, and not to
steal anything.

"When freedom came marster gave us a place for a school building and
furnished nails and gave the lumber for the floors. He instructed them
in building the windows. He was goin' to put his sister Jenette
McAllister in as teacher. She had married Jim McAllister at the Bluff
Church, right at the lower part of the Averysboro Battleground where
some of the last fightin' between the North and South was done, but a
man by the name of George Miller of Harnett County told him he knew a
nigger who could teach the school. He employed the nigger, whose name
was Isaac Brantley, to teach the school. He came from Anderson's Creek
in the lower part of Harnett County. We learned very little, as the
nigger read, and let us repeat it after him. He would hold the book,
and spell and let us repeat the words after him without lettin' us see
in the book. He stayed there two months, then a man by the name of
Matthews, Haywood Matthews, son of Henderson Matthews came. They were
white folks, but went for negroes. Haywood teached there. He got the
children started and most of 'em learned to read and write.

"I saw the Yankees come through. Also Wheeler's Cavalry. The Yankees
took chickens and things, and they gave us some things, but Wheeler's
Cavalry gave us nothin'. They took what they wanted and went on.
Marster hid his horses and things in the Pecosin.

"When the Yankees came Marster was hid. They rode up to my mother and
asked her where he was. She said, 'I do not know.' They then asked her
where was de silver, his money, an' de brandy, an' wine. They got one
demijohn full o' brandy. They went into the house, tore up things got
his china pipe, fixed for four people to smoke at one time. You could
turn a piece and shett off all de holes but one, when one man wanted to
smoke. They threw away his old beaver hat, but before they left they
got it and left it in the house. Wheeler's Cavalry stomped things and
broke up more den de Yankees.

"Daddy hid marster's money, a lot of it, in the jam o' de fence. He
covered it with sand that he threw out of a ditch that ran along near
the fence. The Yankees stopped and sat on the sand to eat their