I have never forgotten my first day's stay at this new home. My whole object that first day was to eat everything in sight. At my own home I slept on the dirt floor; at this new home I slept in the attic, my bed being a pile of cotton-seed with a quilt for covering. My duty at this new home was to attend to the horses, to bring the cows from the pasture, sweep the yard, wait on the table, nurse two children, etc. I stayed at this place for two and one-half years, and as my knowledge of things increased my duties became more and more exacting. During this whole time, and for two years before, I had not seen or heard from my mother. I was twenty miles from any railroad, and had never seen or heard of a railroad train. We lived on the public road between Paulding and Enterprise, and by some means I heard that my mother had gone to the "railroad." Though I had never been away on my own resources, I resolved to do better than I was doing. I remember very well that it was Monday morning when one of the doctor's daughters said to me, "Russell, you go down to 'Vina's house, tell her to come and scour for me; come by the store and get a package of soda; then come through the field and drive the turkeys home." Providence never favored any one more than it did me on that day. I went by the store and told them to do up the soda, I went by and told 'Vina that she was wanted, but I did not drive the turkeys home. I started out in search of my mother, and after walking more than half the distance I overtook an ox-team, and the driver allowed me to ride a part of the way. I reached the railroad town about night, and standing there was a freight train of the Mobile and Ohio Railroad. I was never so frightened in all my life as when the whistle blew and this object moved away. I remember asking the driver of the ox-team where the thing's eyes were, and where the horses were that pulled it. The doctor, suspecting that I had gone to Enterprise in search of my mother, made plans to capture me and have me returned, but all of this failed. By good fortune I found my brother, who was married and living in this town; here again I became a nurse, having to care for his two children. Afterward I went to live with a white family which was very kind to me. The young man who carried me to his house as a nurse put into my hands, after I had been there some months, the first spelling-book I had ever had; saying to me that if I would stay with them for two years, he would at the end of that time send me to school. I stayed at this place for some months, when my mother came from somewhere, I know not where, and with five of the boys we joined ourselves together to work on a plantation on "halves." We worked very hard that year.