fore I'd
let you have Mary.' That's jes' the very words she told 'em.

"Then I hears my papa is sold some place I don't know where. 'Course, I
didn't know him so well, jes' what mamma done told me, so that didn't
worry me like mamma being took so far away.

"One day Mr. Will say, 'Mary, you want to go to the river and see the
boat race?' Law me, I never won't forget that. Where we live it ain't
far to the Miss'sippi River and pretty soon here they comes, the Natchez
and the Eclipse, with smoke and fire jes' pourin' out of they
smokestacks. That old captain on the 'Clipse starts puttin' in bacon
meat in the boiler and the grease jes' comes out a-blazin' and it beat
the Natchez to pieces.

"I stays with Miss Olivia till '63 when Mr. Will set us all free. I was
'bout 17 year old then or more. I say I goin' find my mamma. Mr. Will
fixes me up two papers, one 'bout a yard long and the other some
smaller, but both has big, gold seals what he says is the seal of the
State of Missouri. He gives me money and buys my fare ticket to Texas
and tells me they is still slave times down here and to put the papers
in my bosom but to do whatever the white folks tells me, even if they
wants to sell me. But he say, 'Fore you gets off the block, jes' pull
out the papers, but jes' hold 'em up to let folks see and don't let 'em
out of your hands, and when they sees them they has to let you alone.'

"Miss Olivia cry and carry on and say be careful of myself 'cause it
sho' rough in Texas. She give me a big basket what had so much to eat in
it I couldn't hardly heft it and 'nother with clothes in it. They puts
me in the back end a the boat where the big, old wheel what run the boat
was and I goes to New Orleans, and the captain puts me on 'nother boat
and I comes to Galveston, and that captain puts me on 'nother boat and I
comes up this here Buffalo Bayou to Houston.

"I looks 'round Houston, but not long. It sho' was a dumpy little place
then and I gets the stagecoach to Austin. It takes us two days to get
there and I thinks my back busted sho' 'nough, it was sich rough ridin'.
Then I has trouble sho'. A man asks me where I goin' and says to come
'long and he takes me to a Mr. Charley Crosby. They takes me to the
block what they sells slaves on. I gets right up like they tells me,
'cause I 'lects what Mr. Will done told me to do, and they starts
biddin' on me. And when they cried off and this Mr. Crosby comes up to
get me, I jes' pulled ou