The long line passed. One and all they said: "I gwi stay wid you, Marster." A few put it in different words. Uncle Andrew, the dean of the body, with wool as white as snow, a widower who went sparking every Sunday in my grandfather's coat and my grandfather's silk hat, said: "Law, Marster! I ain' got nowhar tuh go ef I was gwine!" Some wiped their eyes, and my father had tears in his. Next morning, old Uncle Eph, Andrew's mate, was missing; his aged wife was in great distress. She came to my father reproachfully: "Marster," she said, "I wish you wouldn' put all dat foolishness 'bout freedom in Eph's hade. He so ole I dunno what gwi become uh him 'long de road. When I wake up dis mo'nin', he done tied all his close up in his hankercher and done lit out." In a few days he returned, the butt of the quarters for many a day. "I jes wanter see whut it feel lak tuh be free," he said, "an' I wanter to go back to Ole Marster's plantation whar I was born. It don' look de same dar, an' I done see nuff uh freedom." Presently my father was making out contracts and explaining them over and over; he would sign his name, the negro would make his mark, the witnesses sign; and the bond for a year's work and wages or part of the crop, was complete. At first, contracts had to be ratified by a Freedmen's Bureau agent, who charged master and servant each fifty cents or more. After one of our neighbours told his negroes they were free, they all promised to stay, as had ours. Next morning all but two were gone. In a few days all returned. The Bureau Agent had made them come back. Many negroes leaving home fared worse than Uncle Eph. After the fall of Richmond, Mr. Hill, who had been a high official of the Confederacy, went back to his plantation, where he found but three negroes remaining, the rest having departed for Washington, the negro heaven. One of these, a man of seventy, said he must go, too. His ex-master could not dissuade him. He was comfortably quartered and Mr. Hill told him he would be cared for the rest of his life. Nothing would do but he must sell his chickens and his little crop of tobacco to one of the other negroes and go. Mr. Hill gave him provisions for ten days, had the wagon hitched up and sent him to Culpeper, where he was to take the train. On Culpeper's outskirts was the usual collection of negroes, snack-house, bad whiskey, gambling, and kindred evils. Here Uncle John stopped. He had started with $15 cash. In less than a week his money was gone and he was thrown out on the common. Mr. Hill, summoned before the Provost-Marshal on the charge of having driven Uncle John off, said: "The man sitting out there in my buggy can tell you whether I did that." The testimony of the black witness was conclusive, the Provost dismissed the case. Mr. Hill went to the commons.