him. I was standin' by marster when he talk to dey father, my brer Billy. He say, 'Billy, your children shall not lack for father and mother. I will be both father an' mother to them.' I heerd him say dat my-self, an' he did it too."
The five brothers and sisters were ever favorite and trusted servants. I did not know till I heard this account from Mammy Harriet the special reason of their being favored above others. I often heard my father speak of them very affectionately. One day he said that he had never had occasion to punish one of them but once, when the girl had frightened the baby Virginius by telling him that a lion would catch him. "I hated to punish one of that truthful, honest family," he said; "but my orders had always been that no child of mine should be frightened by and one, and I could not pass it over."
When it was resolved to leave Virginia, the baby boy was named Virginius, after the beloved State that had given birth to his ancestors. This child, the youngest of four brothers, was but six months old when, in September, 1835, the long journey southward was begun.
Sophia's father and mother and her two sisters, one married to Mr. Lewis Smith, with her husband and two children, Augustine Dabney, with his wife and family, and other kinsfolk and friends had become quite infatuated with the desire to go with Thomas to Mississippi, and a number of these arranged to undertake the move along with him. Mr. Charles Hill took charge of the carriages that held the white families, while Thomas had the care of the negroes and wagons. The journey was made with so much care and forethought that not a case of serious illness occurred on the route. The white families were quartered at night, if practicable, in the houses that they found along the way. Tents were provided for the negroes. The master himself, during the entire journey, did not sleep under a roof The weather was perfect: no heavy rains fell during the two months. He wrapped himself in his great-coat, with sometimes the addition of a
