rk, and then he come on back to the
quarters.

I just saw one slave try to get away right in hand. They caught him
with bloodhounds and brung him back in. The hounds had nearly tore him
up, and he was sick a long time. I don't remember his name, but he
wasn't one of the old regular negroes.

In Texas we had a church where we could go. I think it was a white
church and they just let the negroes have it when they got a preacher
sometimes. My mammy took me sometimes, and she loved to sing them
salvation songs.

We used to carry news from one plantation to the other I reckon,
'cause mammy would tell about things going on some other plantation
and I know she never been there.

Christmas morning we always got some brown sugar candy or some
molasses to pull, and we children was up bright and early to get that
'lasses pull, I tell you! And in the winter we played skeeting on the
ice when the water froze over. No, I don't mean skating. That's when
you got iron skates, and we didn't have them things. We just get a
running start and jump on the ice and skeet as far as we could go, and
then run some more.

I nearly busted my head open, and brother Johnson said: "Try it
again," but after that I was scared to skeet any more.

Mammy say we was down in Texas to get away from the War, but I didn't
see any war and any soldiers. But one day old Master stay after he eat
breakfast and when us negroes come in to eat he say: "After today I
ain't your master any more. You all as free as I am." We just stand
and look and don't know what to say about it.

After while pappy got a wagon and some oxen to drive for a white man
who was coming to the Cherokee Nation because he had folks here. His
name was Dave Mounts and he had a boy named John.

We come with them and stopped at Fort Gibson where my own grand mammy
was cooking for the soldiers at the garrison. Her name was Phyllis
Brewer and I was named after her. She had a good Cherokee master. My
mammy was born on his place.

We stayed with her about a week and then we moved out on Four Mile
Creek to live. She died on Fourteen-Mile Creek about a year later.

When we first went to Four Mile Creek I seen negro women chopping wood
and asked them who they work for and I found out they didn't know they
was free yet.

After a while my pappy and mammy both died, and I was took care of by
my aunt Elsie Vann. She took my brother Johnson too, but I don't know
who took Harry Vann.

I was marri