Vici have to do all the work.

Jest as I gitting able to walk 'round here come some soldiers and say
they come to git Master Bill for the War. He still in the bed sick,
and so they leave a parole paper for him to stay until he git well,
and then he got to go into Bonham and go with the soldiers to
blacksmith for them that got the cannons, the man said.

Mistress take on and cry and hold onto the man's coat and beg, but it
don't do no good. She say they don't belong in Texas but they belong
in the Chickasaw Nation, but he say that don't do no good, 'cause they
living in Texas now.

Master Bill jest stew and fret so, one night he fever git way up and
he go off into a kind of a sleep and about morning he died.

My broke arm begin to swell up and hurt me, and I git sick with it
again, and Mistress git another doctor to come look at it.

He say I got bad blood from it how come I git so sick, and he git out
his knife out'n his satchel and bleed me in the other arm. The next
day he come back and bleed me again two times, and the next day one
more time, and then I git so sick I puke and he quit bleeding me.

While I still sick Mistress pick up and go off to the Territory to her
pappy and leave the children thar for Vici and me to look after. After
while she come home for a day or two and go off again somewhere else.
Then the next time she come home she say they been having big battles
in the Territory and her pappy moved all his stuff down on the river,
and she home to stay now.

We git along the best we can for a whole winter, but we nearly starve
to death, and then the next spring when we getting a little patch
planted Mistress go into Bonham and come back and say we all free and
the War over.

She say, "You and Vici jest as free as I am, and a lot freer, I
reckon, and they say I got to pay you if you work for me, but I ain't
got no money to pay you. If you stay on with me and help me I will
feed and home you and I can weave you some good dresses if you card
and spin the cotton and wool."

Well, I stayed on, 'cause I didn't have no place to go, and I carded
and spinned the cotton and wool and she make me just one dress. Vici
didn't do nothing but jest wait on the children and Mistress.

Mistress go off again about a week, and when she come back I see she
got some money, but she didn't give us any of it.

After while I asked her ain't she got some money for me, and she say
no, ain't she giving me a good home? Den