set on a bench in the dining room. When the news came that we were free
General Gano took us all in the dining room and told us about it. I told
him I wusn't going to the cabins and sleep with them niggers and I
didn't. At Christmas and New Years we sho did have big times and General
Gano and Miss Nat would buy us candy, popcorn, and firecrackers and all
the good things just like the white folks. I don't remember any
weddings, but do remember the funeral of Mr. Marion who lived between
the big house and Lick Skillet. He was going to be buried in the
cemetery at Lick Skillet, but the horses got scared and turned the
spring wagon over and the corpse fell out. The mourners sure had a time
getting things straightened out, but they finally got him buried.

They used to keep watermelon to pass to company. Us children would go to
the patch and bring the melons to the big spring and pour water over
them and cool 'em. When news came that we were free we all started back
to Kentucky to Marse Jones old place. We started the journey in two
covered wagons and an ambulance. General Gano and Miss Nat and the two
children and me rode in the ambulance. When we got to Memphis we got on
a steam boat named "Old Kentucky". We loaded the ambulance and the two
wagons and horses on the boat. When we left the boat, we got on the
train and got off at Georgetown in Scott County and rode from there to
General Gano's Brother William in Scott County, on a stage coach. When I
took the children, Katy and Maurice, upstairs to wash them I looked out
the window into the driveway and saw the horses that belonged to Marse
Briar Jones. They nickered at the gate trying to get in. The horses were
named Henry Clay and Dan. When the children went down I waved at the
horses and they looked up at the window and nickered again and seemed to
know me. When we were coming back from Texas, Maurice held on the plait
of my hair all the way back. I didn't marry while I belonged to the Gano
family. I married Henry Mason after I came to Lancaster to live about