The daily morning journal and courier., 1902-03-08

All they could do was to keep account and tell Mr. Joe, when he came. He al-
 ways said what the punishment should
 be, and stayed near to see that his or- ders were carried out. l remember of l hearing one instance which illustrated
 his disposition.
 | MT. Joe had his slaves in two squads,
 called the upper set and the lower set | Each set had it's own oVerseer and | there was always more or less rivalry between the two oyerseers. One day
 one of these men made bet with the
 other of a box of cigars that the lattef could not have a certain man pun | ished. The way I came to know about
 this was that an uncle of mine, who was only boy then overheard the two | overseers talking. He was too small to | report what he had heard then, even if 1 he had wanted to do so, but he heard | the bet made and saw the outcome of | it. Years afterward, when he was a man, he told me about it, ] Every Sunday morning the field | hands came together for roll call. and
 MT. Joe held court at that time. If the 1 overseers had an account against any one they turned 1t in then and MT Joe 1 decided what should be done. When | this mans name was called the over
 seer entered charge against him. | The man came out of the ranks and 1 took a seat reserved for this purpose. 1 The overseer claimed that the man had been guilty of insubordinatiou, and had used insulting language to him.
 MT. Davis asked the man if the charge was true.
 Well, marster, the man said, 'all l can say is that if I ever said them
 words what he says I did, I don't know anything about 1t, I couldn't have known what I was doing at the time. You know me, and know what kind of a man I've been,
 MT Joe questioned the overseer about the matter. The oyerseer repeat ed the charge, and finally made an issue of the case. He said he could not be responsible for keeping order on the place unless this man was punished Finally MT Joe gave in, nut he said: MT. ----. I'll do as you wish this time under the circumstances, but I'll tell you this: I'd just about as soon take the punishment myself
 MT Joe was man who had a large correspondence, both upon business matters connected with the manage ment of the plantation, and in politics He had been a lawyer with q practice
 which had brought him both fame and fortune. l was soon able to be put to work sorting over papers and putting them away, and it was not very long before he had me begin to do copying for him. There were no typewriters in those days, and frequently four or five copies of a long speech or plea or ac- count would have to be made by hand. All this helped my education greatly. Another way in which l got help came from my going over the mail. l used to take the papers out and read them be- fore I came back to the house In this way I came to have a very good idea of what was going on in the world
 Persons who heard MT Montgomery address the league, in Parker Memorial
 Hall. commented on the excellent Eng fish which he used. and on the superior education which he evidently possessed. This was so noticeable in conversation that I said. "But surelNi you must have had some other opportunity to learn than this which you have de- scribed.
 Tt came about in this way, said Mir Montgomery. During the war the Da- wis place was confiscated by the Union government. and with two other large plantations in the same bend of the riv- CT, was used as a place of refuge for freed slaves The river swung in on each side so that at the narrowest place the neck of the peninsula was only half a mile wide F'ortifcat0ns were thrown across at this place to protect the people inside After the war-it was in 1S67-the property was returned to the owners, and sum of money was paid as rent, One of the first things MT. Joe did was to get in communica- tion with my father and engage him to act as a sort of agent for him, to get the colored people to come back to work the land In the meantime my brother and myself had gone into the United States navy We were on board the Admiral Porter After while father
 
 bookkeeper for him. l thought I was pretty well educated, but I found that I couldn't keep books. Although l had read widely in the Hurricane library chiefly history--I had never been be- yond long division in arithmetic, At that time there was a school not far from our place, taught by woman from the north. I made arrangements with her to teach me arithmetic and went to her on horseback twice week until I had mastered the study My work for father threw me in contact with the clerks on the river steam boats. Those men were almost always them I learned the principles of double entry bookkeeping Some years after that I took a notion I wanted to write fiction. I had read some novels and had always seen the white folks around me reading a great many I thought I would like to write novel So l got some books on composition and rhetor- fc and studied them by myself
 Have you ever written that novel?' I asked, ''or any fiction?"
 No" said MT. Montgomery, "l nev- CT have had time.
 "T stayed at the Davis place until 1883 MT Joe died soon after the war. He was an old man-much older than MT. Jeff I had got the colored people there pretty well provided with schools and churches, but one or two fioods and the