After we had talked some little time he wanted to know if I ever worked at shoemaking. I told him that I had, and that my father worked at the trade as long as I could remember. So he had me mend up his boots, which I did, thinking that his wife would soon be home and get something to eat. Now this was one of the worst sights for poverty that I had seen in all my travels, for it did not seem as though this man had five pounds of corn meal in this newly built hut. In one end there was a very rudely constructed fireplace, and I failed to find anything inside of the place to answer for a bed, except some old rags and a little straw in one corner. The day was nearly half gone when I had finished mending his boots, and he seemed to be very well pleased, when I told him that it did not seem as though his wife would be back very soon, of whom he had spoken. He had told me that as soon as she came she would get something for us to eat, but I still insisted on going. So I started to go, and just as soon as I made away he reached behind the door and got out a double-barreled shot gun and brought it to bear on me. He told me to stop or he would have to shoot. I thought how soon my friend had turned to a foe. I found that I was again in the hands of an enemy. As soon as I went back to him he called very loudly for his mother to come up to his place. It seemed that his folks lived about a hundred yards or more away, just across the woods. Soon his poor old mother came running up to the house and asked him what was the matter. He wanted her to stay with the children while he went away with me. Then she looked at me and wanted to know where he was going. He told her that I was a Yankee, right from Pennsylvania and that he was obliged to take me and turn me over to the home guards. He would shoot or hang me without any trial whatever. Then she told him that he had deserted from the Confederate army himself and would be just as liable to arrest as I was, but he didn’t seem to care how much she talked to him. Oh, so selfish was he to accomplish his end! He wanted his mother to stay with the two children while he went away with me. Then his mother wanted to know who I was and I told her all I had done for her son, and how I had waited after mending his boots, and how he was inclined to want to shoot me for the kind act I had shown him. “Well, mother,” he said, “will you stay here with the children until I come back?” “No sir, I will not do it, nor will I ever do anything for you if you do not let this poor starving creature go,” she said. “No, mother, I could not do it, but if you will take the children home with you I will go down and let father see my prisoner, so come along,” and he made me walk right in front of his double-barreled shot gun, and was very careful to tell me if I undertook to run that he would have to shoot me. In this way we went to a corn field, about a half mile from his father’s place, and here we found about eight or ten women and men