prevented them from learning how to do things in the most improved and thorough manner.  As a result of the system, fences were out of repair, gates were hanging half off the hinges, doors creaked, window-panes were out, plastering had fallen but was not replaced, weeds grew in the yard.  As a rule, there was food for whites and blacks, but inside the house, and on the dining-room table, there was wanting that delicacy and refinement of touch and finish which can make a home the most convenient, comfortable, and attractive place in the world.  Withal there was a waste of food and other materials which was sad.  When freedom came, the slaves were almost as well fitted to begin life anew as the master, except in the matter of book-learning and ownership of property.  The slave owner and his sons had mastered no special industry.  They unconsciously had imbibed the feeling that manual labour was not the proper thing for them.  On the other hand, the slaves, in many cases, had mastered some handicraft, and none were ashamed, and few unwilling, to labour.

Finally the war closed, and the day of freedom came.  It was a momentous and eventful day to all upon our plantation.  We had been expecting it.  Freedom was in the air, and had been for months.  Deserting soldiers returning to their homes were to be seen every day.  Others who had been discharged, or whose regiments had been paroled, were constantly passing near our place.  The “grape-vine telegraph” was kept busy night and day.  The news and mutterings of great events were swiftly carried from one plantation to another.  In the fear of “Yankee” invasions, the silverware and other valuables were taken from the “big house,” buried in the woods, and guarded by trusted slaves.  Woe be to any one who would have attempted to disturb the buried treasure.  The slaves would give the Yankee soldiers food, drink, clothing—­anything but that which had been specifically intrusted to their care and honour.  As the great day drew nearer, there was more singing in the slave quarters than usual.  It was bolder, had more ring, and lasted later into the night.  Most of the verses of the plantation songs had some reference to freedom.  True, they had sung those same verses before, but they had been careful to explain that the “freedom” in these songs referred to the next world, and had no connection with life in this world.  Now they gradually threw off the mask, and were not afraid to let it be known that the “freedom” in their songs meant freedom of the body in this world.  The night before the eventful day, word was sent to the slave quarters to the effect that something unusual was going to take place at the “big house” the next morning.  There was little, if any, sleep that night.  All as excitement and expectancy.  Early the next morning word was sent to all the slaves, old and young, to gather at the house.  In company with my mother, brother, and sister, and a large number of other slaves, I went to the master’s house.