“There was a colored man there that they were keeping too.  One Sunday, they were taking him to church and leaving my mother behind.  She said to them, ’Well, I will be gone when you come back, so you better leave Bill here this morning.’  Her old mistress said to her, ’Yes; and we’ll come after you and whip you every step of the way back.’  But she went while they were at church and they did not catch her either.

“The Saturday before that she made me a dress out of the tail of an old bonnet and a big red handkerchief.  Made waist, sleeves and all out of that old bonnet and handkerchief.  She left right after they left for church, and she dressed me up in my new dress.  She put the dress on me and went down the road.  She didn’t know which way to go.  She didn’t know the way nor which direction to take.  She walked and she walked and she walked.  Then she would step aside and listen and ask the way.

“It was near night when she found a place to stay.  The people out in the yard saw her pass and called to her.  It was the youngest daughter of Mrs. Kelly, the one she had overheard telling her mother she ought to set her free and pay her.  She stayed with John Kelly’s daughter two or three days.  I don’t know what her name was, only she was a Kelly.  Then she got out among the colored people and got to working and got some clothes for herself and me.  From then on, she worked and taken care of me.

“From there she went to Pocahontas and worked and stayed there till I was about fifteen years old.  Meanwhile, she married in Pocahontas.  Then she moved to Newport.  When I was fifteen, I married in Newport.  My mother supported herself by cooking and washing.  Then she got a chance to work on a small boat cooking and doing the boat washing, and there would be weeks that some of the deck hands would have to help her because they would have such a crowd of raftsmen.  Sometimes there would be twenty or thirty of them raftsmen—­men who would cut the logs and raft them to go and bring them down the river.  Then the deck hands would have to help her.  I too would have to wash the dishes and help out.

“I went to school in Pocahontas and met my future husband (Travis).  I brought many a waiter to serve when they had a crowd.  I took Travis to the boat and he was hired to wait on the men.  When they had just the crew—­Captain, Clerk, Pilot, Engineer, Mate, and it seems there was another one—­I waited on the table myself.  I help peel the potatoes and turn the meat.  When we had that big run, then Mr. Travis and some of the others would come down and help me.  The boat carried freight, cotton, and nearly anything might neer that was shipped down to town.  Pocahontas was a big shipping place.

“My mother said they used to jump over the broom stick and count that married.  The only amusement my mother had was work.  I don’t know if she knowed there was such a thing as Christmas.

“Mother’s little house was a log cabin like all the other slaves had.