their unrequited toil, they became possessed by the demon of avarice and
pride, and lost sight of the most vital of the Christly qualities.




CHAPTER V.

FREEDOM AFTER SLAVERY.


* * * * *

COMING NORTH.

As before stated, we arrived in Memphis on the Fourth of July, 1865. My
first effort as a freeman was to get something to do to sustain myself
and wife and a babe of a few months, that was born at the salt works. I
succeeded in getting a room for us, and went to work the second day
driving a public carriage. I made enough to keep us and pay our room
rent. By our economy we managed to get on very well. I worked on, hoping
to go further north, feeling somehow that it would be better for us
there; when, one day I ran across a man who knew my wife's mother. He
said to me: "Why, your wife's mother went back up the river to
Cincinnati. I knew her well and the people to whom she belonged." This
information made us eager to take steps to find her. My wife was
naturally anxious to follow the clue thus obtained, in hopes of finding
her mother, whom she had not seen since the separation at Memphis years
before. We, therefore, concluded to go as far as Cincinnati, at any
rate, and endeavor to get some further information of mother. My wife