"I's ol' enuf to know dat am de mule what belongs to Marster. I knows him by his bray", answered the negro, as he looked over the crowd and saw and felt no sympathy from any of them.
"You were caught with stolen goods out of your county and from all appearances you were hurt in the attempt to escape for I see you are limping. What do you say to that?"
Uncle Jake was trembling as he looked down at his smelly shoes. "No, sir, Jedge. You is sho' wrong. I jest receibed a commandment from my heabenly Father to walk in de Truth and I was serbing my white folks by getting back what is ders. Dis mule was stole by some po' sinner what don' know de scriptures".
At this point the sheriff from Jake's county, who was a good friend of our Marlow family, walked into the courtroom to see if he could help Jake in his difficulties. When the frightened negro saw him, he forgot the dignity of the court and shouted, "Praise de Lawd. I's been a vessel ob His for nigh onto sixty years and He's done fill me full ob Grace and Glory dis very hour".
And without further ado, he left the sheriff to make all explanations. As he ran to the hitching post the mule began to bray and as Uncle Jake mounted he shouted, "We're shaking de dust ob dis place from off our feet and goin' back to our (Fannin) county where we can con-tinue bein' vessels ob de Lawd and servin' our white folks".
As long as he lived, Uncle Jake was a faithful servant to his white folks. Every time I slipped away to spend a little time at the log-cabin, I always asked him to repeat the story of how he returned the mule and with each repeating he praised the Lord more for being a direct instrument in helping him prove to the countryside that he was "a clean vessel ob de Lawd", but he blamed the new shoes and his skinned heel for not getting across the county line before he was caught.
BIBLIOGRAPHY.
An old negro by the name of Jake identified a mule of his master's in court at Morganton. The little girls in the Morris family in Fannin County were made to wear bonnets with their hair pulled through so they could not be removed.
These two facts told me by Mr. J. R. Kincaid of Blue Ridge.