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Ok]M.hoaa Writerst Project
get back home if we wanted. to cone.

	Mammy told. him ehe could. bear her own expenses. I remember t d.idn~t icnc~w what ~ expenses“ was ‚ aM t thought it was something t was go Ing to have to help carry all the way back. S

	It waa a lt)ng time after he knew we was free before he told. us. He tried. to keep us, t reclccrn, but had. to let us go. He &tea pretty soon after he told. ue ‚ and. some said hie heart just broke amt some said. eome Negroee poisoned~ him. I &id&t know which.

	Anyways w• had. to straggle back the beet way we could,, an& me an4 ~aainy just got along one way~ and another till we got to a ferry over the BedS River aM into Arkanaaa. Then we got some rides ai4 walked. eoa ~til we got to Tort Saith. They was a lot of Negro campe there ath we stayed awhile and then started. out to Port Gibeon because we heard they wai giving rations ont there. Mammy knew we was Cherokee anyway‘, I guess.

	That trip was hell on earth. Nobody let us rids and it took us nearly two weeks to walk all that ways, and. we nearly starved all the tirn. We was skin and bones and. feet aU bloody when we got to the Fort.

	we come here to !our Mile Branch to where the Negroes was all setting down, and~ pretty soon Mamn~ died.

	I married Oliver Wilson on January second, 1878. He used to belong to Mr. DeWitt Wileon of Tahleqaah, and t think the old. people used to live down at Wilson Rock because n~ husband need to know aU about that place and the place where I was borned.. Old Mister DeWitt Wilson give ~e a pear tree the next year after I was married, and. it is etuI out in ~ yard and. beare every Yea?.
I was married. in a white and black checkedy calico apron that I washed.