old Master tell me I am free but he will look
out after me 'cause I am just a little negro and I aint got no sense.
I know he is right, too.

Well, I go ahead and make me a crop of corn all by myself and then I
don't know what to do wid it. I was afraid I would get cheated out of
it 'cause I can't figure and read, so I tell old Master about it and
he bought it off'n me.

We never had no school in slavery and it was agin the law for anybody
to even show a negro de letters and figures, so no Cherokee slave
could read.

We all come back to de old place and find de negro cabins and barns
burned down and de fences all gone and de field in crab grass and
cockleburrs. But de Big House aint hurt 'cepting it need a new roof.
De furniture is all gone, and some said de soldiers burned it up for
firewood. Some officers stayed in de house for a while and tore
everything up or took it off.

Master give me over to de National Freedmen's Bureau and I was bound
out to a Cherokee woman name Lizzie McGee. Then one day one of my
uncles named Wash Sheppard come and tried to git me to go live wid
him. He say he wanted to git de family all together agin.

He had run off after he was sold and joined de North army and
discharged at Fort Scott in Kansas, and he said lots of freedmen was
living close to each other up by Coffeyville in de Coo-ee-scoo-ee
District.

I wouldn't go, so he sent Isaac and Joe Vann dat had been two of old
Captain Joe's negroes to talk to me. Isaac had been Young Joe's
driver, and he told me all about how rich Master Joe was and how he
would look after us negroes. Dey kept after me 'bout a year, but I
didn't go anyways.

But later on I got a freedman's allotment up in dat part close to
Coffeyville, and I lived in Coffeyville a while but I didn't like it
in Kansas.

I lost my land trying to live honest and pay my debts. I raised eleven
children just on de sweat of my hands and none of dem ever tasted
anything dat was stole.

When I left Mrs. McGee's I worked about three years for Mr. Sterling
Scott and Mr. Roddy Reese. Mr. Reese had a big flock of peafowls dat
had belonged to Mr. Scott and I had to take care of dem.

Whitefolks, I would have to tromp seven miles to Mr. Scott's house two
or three times a week to bring back some old peafowl dat had got out
and gone back to de old place!

Poor old Master and Mistress only lived a few years after de War.
Master went plumb blind after he move back to Webber's Fa