Jim Crow did not seem to realize that he was 
no longer a prisoner. ““Why don’t you go on 
away from hyar?” Pete inquired. °*Don’t you 
know that you is a free nigger?” 
In time, however, new feathers came out on 
Jim’s wing, and he began to wander. Finally 
falling in with other crows he came less and less 
frequently to the plantation house, and at last 
disappeared altogether. The first time he 
stayed away at night he went to roost with two or 
three other crows in a thick tree close by a small, 
plain church building that was used by a con- 
gregation of colored folk. It stood away out 
in the pine woods nearly a mile from any plan- 
tation house, so that the shouts of the con- 
gregation would not disturb any white people 
of the neighborhood. This was about three 
miles from Jim’s old home. The nearest “big 
house” was that of the Hayward plantation. 
Among those who had lived there was a certain 
Jim Haskel who had died the year before. His 
mother had long been planning to have his 
funeral preached, and the proper time seemed 
to have arrived when it was understood that the 
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