“Laws, I’s young an’ spry den, an’ wanted to be free _powerful bad_; but de Laud he say, I mus’ stay right yere, an’ cook for Missus, a slave all my life, maybe.” Fresh and clear as when first spoken, Aunt Phebe seemed to hear these tales which once impressed her youthful mind. And then right between the hay-makers and Auntie’s eyes there came another picture. She could see the great smoke rolling up over the woods beyond the cotton field, and hear the cannon’s roar, and the shells screeching and crashing through the trees, and see “old Missus” wringing her hands and weeping, and praying the good Lord to spare her four sons who were fighting in the confederate ranks; and all the slaves were praying for the “Yankees,” while they exhausted every means to soothe and comfort “old missus.” That same night, when the house servants were all in her cabin except Lucy, who was “staying wid Missus,” Uncle Tim, the plantation preacher, was repeating what scripture passages he could remember, there came a loud rap on the closed door behind. “If yo’ de Laud o’ de Debbil,” said Uncle Tim, “in de name ob de Laud, I tell yo’ come in,” and a Yankee soldier entered. There she could see him stand in the light of the “fat pine” which Tim put on the fire—the “Lincom Soger”—repeating the Proclamation of Emancipation. How plainly he stood out now! and the great light that shone around him seemed almost to smite her blind as it did then. There was dear old granddaddy, with wrinkled hands that had toiled without recompense for nearly a century, clasped tightly together. How slowly and easily he slipped from his chair onto the floor! She thought he was kneeling; but when she bent to help him, she heard his whisper, “Free into glory! Free into glory! ’Tain’t no niggah _slave_ yo’ comin’ fo’, Angel!” and his withered lips closed forever on earth, while his “new song,” broke forth from lips of fadeless bloom, in a land where love makes slavery impossible. And there she saw “Mammy”—the dear form swaying backwards and forwards as she wept and moaned, “Oh, wicked, cruel man to cheat poor slaves! It is too good for true! _too good for true!_” And then, before Aunt Phebe, opened the two deep graves where they buried them side by side, father and daughter, grandfather and mother. The tardy emancipation that had opened slavery’s dungeon had opened also the pearly gates for the aged and the invalid. The big hot tears were rolling slowly down Auntie’s cheeks and threatening a briny shower upon the hay-makers, when Uncle Jesse’s step upon the threshold startled her, and the plate fell to the floor and broke into a score of pieces. She dropped into a chair, threw her apron over her head, and wept aloud. “Wal! wal! wal!” said her husband, as he scraped the soil from his shoes at the door, “crying that way about a broked up plate? Oh! it’s one old Missus gave yo’,” he added, as he approached the fragments.