They get into a wild country, “full of all kinds of varmints,” and begin
to build—Peter knocked off of a barn by his master—story of a
rattlesnake charming a child—Peter hews the timber for a new house,
and gets paid in lashes—Tom Ludlow an abolitionist—Peter’s friends all
advise him to run off—the fox-tail company, their expeditions on
Oneida Lake—deer stories—Rotterdam folks—story of a pain’ter—master
pockets Peter’s share of the booty and bounty—the girls of the family
befriend him—a sail on the Lake—Peter is captain, and saves the life
of a young lady who falls overboard, and nearly loses his own—kindly
and generously treated by the young lady’s father, who gives Peter a
splendid suit of clothes worth seventy dollars, and “a good many other
notions”—his master ☞ steals his clothes ☜ and wears them out
himself—Mr. Tucker’s opinion of his character, and Peter’s of his
fate.
_Author._ “Well, Peter, you found yourself in a wild country, out there
in Cayuga, I reckon.”
_Peter._ “You’re right, there’s no mistake ’bout _that_; most every body
lived in loghouses, and the woods was full of wild varmints as they
could hold; well, as soon as we’d got there, we went to buildin’ a log
house; for see master owned a large farm out there, and as soon as we
gits there we goes right on to work; we finally got the house up, and
gits into it, and durin’ the time I suffered _most unaccountably_. There
we went to buildin’ a log barn tu, and we had to notch the logs at both
ends to fay into each other; well, as I was workin’ on ’em, I got one
notched, and we lifted it up breast high to put it on, and he sees ’twas
a _leetle_ tu short, and nobody was to blame, and if any body ’twas
_him_, for he measured it off; but he no sooner sees it, than he drops
his end, and doubles up his fist, and knockes me on the temples, while I
was yit a holdin’ on, and down I went, and the log on me, and oh! how he
_swore_! well, it struck my foot, and smashed it as flat as a pancake,
and in five minutes it swelled up as big as a puffball, and I couldn’t
hardly walk for a week, and yit I had to be on the move all the time,
and he _cussed_ cause I didn’t go faster. When I gits up I couldn’t only
stand on one leg, but he made me stand on it, and lift up that log
breast high, but he didn’t lift a pound, but cried out ‘_lift, lift_,
you black cuss.’ Well, we got the logs up, and when we was a puttin’ the
rafters on, I happened to make a mistake in not gittin’ one on ’em into
the right place, and he knocked me off of the plate, where I was a
standin’ and I and the rafter went a tumblin’ together, down to the
ground. It hurt me distressedly, and I cried, but gits up, and says,
‘master, I thinks you treat me rather.’ ‘Stop your mouth, you black
devil, or I’ll throw these ’ere adz at your head;’ and I _had_ to shet
my mouth, _pretty sudden, tu_, and keep it shet, and he made me lift up
that rafter when I couldn’t hardly stand, and keep on to work; and there
I set on the evesplate a tremblin’ jist like a leaf, and every move he
made, I ’spected he’d hurl me off agin’, and his voice seemed like a
tempest—oh! how savage! But he didn’t knock me _off_ agin’—I had to
thatch that barn in the coldest kind of weather, with nothin’ but ragged
thin clothes on; and I used to git some bloody floggin’s, cause I didn’t
thatch fast enough.
“But I’ve talked long ’nough ’bout him, and jist for amusement, I’m a
goin’ to tell ye a story ’bout a rattlesnake, and you may put it in the
book, or not, jist as ye like.
“We lived, as I was a tellin’, in a dreadful wild country, and ’twas
full of all kinds of wild varmints—wolves, and panthers, and bears, was
’mazin plenty, and rattlesnakes mighty thick; and so one day, as we
comes into dinner, mistress seemed to be rather out of humor, and she
sets the baby down on the floor in a pet, and he crawls under the bed,
and begins to be very full of play. He’d laugh, and stick his little
hands out, and draw ’em back, and, as my place in summer was generally
on the outside door, on the sill, I happened to look under the bed, and
there I see a bouncin’ big rattlesnake, stickin’ his head up through a
big crack, and as the child draws his hands back, the snake sticks his
head up agin’. I sings out, with a loud voice, and says I, ‘master,
there’s a rattlesnake under the bed.’ ‘You lie,’ says he; and says I,
‘why master, only jist look for yourself,’ and, at that, mistress runs
to the bed, and snatches up the baby, and it screamed and cried, and
there was no way of pacifyin’ on it in the world. Well, master begins to
think I speaks the truth, and we out with the bed, and up with a board,
and there lay five bouncin’ rattlesnakes, and one on ’em had
twenty-three rattles on him; and so we killed all on ’em. Now that
rattlesnake had _charmed_ that child, and for days and days that child
would cry till you put it down on the floor, and then ‘twould crawl
under the bed to that place, and then ‘twould be still agin’; and it did
seem as though it would never forget that spot, nor snake, and it didn’t
till we got into the new house.
“Well, this winter we went to scorein’ and hewin’ timber for the new
house, and I followed three scores with a broad-axe, and the timber had
to be _hewed_ tu; and I was _so tired_ many a time, that I wished him
and his broad-axe 5000 miles beyond time. Well, I was a hewin’ one of
the plates, and as ’twas very long, I got one on ’em a leetle windin’
and master see it, and he comes along and hits me a lick with the sharp
edge of a square right atwixt my eyes, and cut a considerable piece of a
skin so it lopped down on my nose, and on a hewin’ I had to go when the
blood was a runnin’ down my face in streams; and, finally, one of the
men took a winter-green leaf, and stuck it on over the wound, and it
stopped bleedin’ and it healed up in a few days. This warn’t _much_, but
I tell it to show the natur’ of the man; for any body will abuse power,
if they have it to do just as they please.
“Young Tom Ludlow, one of the scorers, comes up to me, arter master was
gone, and says he, ‘Peter, why in the name of God don’t you show
Morehouse the bottoms of your feet? I’d be hung afore I’d stand it.’
‘Well, Tom,’ says I, ‘I wants to wait till I knows a little more of the
world, and then I’ll show him the bottoms of my feet _with a greasein’_.
Well, Tom laughed a good deal, and says he, ‘that’s _right_ Pete.’
“Tom was a great friend of mine, and he tried to get me to _run off_ for
a good while, and Hen, his brother, he was a good feller, and he tried
tu; and Miss _Sara_, their sister, she was a good soul, and every chance
she got, she’d tell me to run; and Mrs. Ludlow always told me I was a
fool for stayin’ with _sich a brute_; and every time I went there, I
used to git a piece of somethin’ good to eat, that I didn’t get at home;
and Mr. Humphrey’s folks was all the time a tryin’ to git me to run off.
‘Why,’ they say, ‘do you stay there to be beat, and whipt, and starved,
and banged to death? why don’t you run?’ The reply I used to make was,
wait till I git a leetle older, and I’ll clear the coop _for arnest_.
“Squire Whittlesey, that lived off, ’bout six miles, where I used to go
on arrants, says to me one day, ‘Peter, where did you come from?’ So I
ups and tells him all ’bout my history. Then says he, ‘Peter, can I put
any confidence in you?’ ‘Yis, Sir,’ says I; ‘you needn’t be afeared of
me.’ ‘Well,’ says he, ‘you’re free by law, and I advise you to run; but,
wait a while, and don’t run till you can make sure work; and now mind
you don’t go away and tell any body.’
“And, finally, enemost every body says ‘_run Pete_, why don’t you run?’
But thinks I to myself, if I run and don’t make out, ‘twould be better
for me not to run at all, and so I’ll wait, and when I run I’ll run for
sartin.
“There wasn’t many slaves in that region, but a good many colored folks
lived there, and some on ’em was pretty decent folks tu. Well, we used
to have some _‘musements_ as well as many _sad things_; for arter all
Mr. L——, a’most any situation will let a body have some good things, for
its a pretty hard thing to put out _all a body’s_ joys in God’s world;
and then you see a slave enjoys a good many little kinda comforts that
free people don’t think on; and if a time come when he can git away from
his master, and forgit his troubles, why, he’s a good deal happier than
common folks. Well, we used to have some very bright times. We had a Fox
Tail Company out there of forty-seven men, and Hen Ludlow was captain,
and old boss was lefttenant, and I was private, and when we catched a
fox, then ’twas _hurrah boys_. Sometimes we used to have a good deal of
‘musements over there on Oneida Lake, and we used to have fine sport. We
used to start on a kind of a _fishin’ scrape_, and come out on a kind of
a _hunt_.
“Round that lake used to be a master place for deer. Oh! how thick they
was! We used to go over and fish in the arternoon and night; and goin’
cross the lake we’d use these ’ere trolein’ lines; and then we’d fish by
pine torches in the night, and they looked fine in the night over the
smooth water, all a glissenin’; and arter we’d done, we’d sleep on a big
island in the lake, near the outlet—they called it the “Frenchman’s
Island” then, and I guess there was nigh upon fifty acres on it. We’d
start the dogs airly next mornin’ on the north shore, out back of
Rotterdam, and they’d run the deer down into the lake, and then we’d
have hands placed along the shore with skiffs, to put arter ’em into the
water; and we’d have a sight of fun in catchin’ em, arter we’d got ’em
nicely a swimmin’.
“There was a lawless set of fellows round that ’ere Rotterdam, that’s a
fact; and when they heard our dogs a comin’ to the shore, they’d put out
arter ’em, and if they could git our deer first, they wouldn’t make any
bones on it: but they never got but _one_, for we used to have young
fellers in the skiff that understood their business, and they’d lift ’em
along some, I reckon.
“But we used to have the finest sport catchin’ fish there you ever
see—eels, shiners, white fish, pikes, and cat-fish, whappers I tell ye,
and salmon, trout, big fellers, and oceans of pumkin-seed, and pickerel,
and bass; and, while I think on it, I must tell ye one leetle scrape
there that warn’t slow.
“We put up a creek—I guess ’twas Chitining, but I ain’t sartin’—a
spearin’ these ’ere black suckers, and of course we had rifle, powder
and ball along. Well, we had mazin’ luck, and I guess we got three peck
basketfuls; and at last Tom Ludlow says, ‘I swear, Pete, don’t catch any
more.’
“‘Twas now ’bout midnight, and we went back to the fire we’d built under
a big shelvin’ rock, and pitched our camp there for the night; and this
was Saturday night, and we begins to cook our fish for supper. Arter
supper, while we was a settin’ there, some laughin’, some tellin’
stories, some singin’, and some asleep, the gravel begins to fall off of
the ledge over us, and rattle on the leaves.
“Well, we out and looked up, and see a couple of lights about three
inches apart, like green candles, a rollin’ round; and Hen Ludlow says,
‘That’s a _pain’ter_, by Judas;’ and I says, ‘If that’s a pain’ter, I’ve
got the death weapon here, for if I pinted it at any thing it must
come.’
“Bill, a leetle feller about a dozen year old, says he, ‘If I’d a known
this, I wouldn’t a come;’ and so he sets up the dreadfullest bawlin’ you
ever see.
“Hen says, ‘Peter, can you kill that pain’ter?’ ‘Yis,’ says I, ‘I can;
but you must let me rest my piece ‘cross your shoulder, so I shan’t
goggle, for it’s kind’a stirred my blood to see that feller’s
glisseners;’ and he did: so I took sight, as near as I could, right
atwixt them ’ere two candles, as I calls ’em, and fired, and the candles
was dispersed ’mazin quick. Then we harks, and hears a dreadful rustlin’
up there on the rock, and bim’bye a most dolefullest dyin’ kind of a
groan; but we hears nothin’ more, and so we goes under the rock to
sleep, glad ’nough to let all kinds of varmints alone, if they’d only
keep their proper distance; but mind you, we didn’t sleep any that
night. Come daylight, we ventured out, and up we goes on to the rock,
and there lay a mortal big pain’ter, as stiff as a poker. I’d hit him
right atwixt his candles, and doused his glims for him, in a hurry. Hen,
says he, ‘Now, Pete, you’ll have money ’nough to buy gingerbread with
for a good while.’ You see there was a big bounty on pain’ters. And I
says, ‘Hen, if my master was as clever to me as your dad is to you, I
should have money ’nough always.’ Hen says, ‘I shall have my part of the
bounty money, and Morehouse ought to let you have your’n.’
“Arter this, he takes his hide off, and stuffs it with leaves and moss;
and we gathers up our fish, tackle, and pain’ter, and starts for home,
Sunday mornin’.
“Well, when we got home, master and mistress was glad ’nough of the
fish, for they had company. Master’s rule was to give me half the fish I
got, (I’ll give the devil his due,) but this time I didn’t git any, and
I felt rather hard ’bout it, tu. Hen and Tom says, ‘Pete, you call up at
our house to-night, and we’ll settle with you for your share of the
bounty for the pain’ter.’
“So I goes to master, with my hat under my arm, and asks him, ‘If he’d
please to let me go up to Mr. Ludlow’s?’ ‘What do you want to go up to
Mr. Ludlow’s for?’ ‘To git my bounty money,’ says I. ‘No, you main’t go
up to Ludlow’s; but you may go and bring up my brown mare, and saddle
her; and du you du it quick, tu.’
“Well, I goes and does what he says; and he goes up to Mr. Ludlow’s, and
_gits my part of the bounty money, and pockets it up; and that’s all I
got for dousin’ his glims_! ☜
“While he was gone, Lecta, my friend, comes, and says, ‘Peter, where’s
father gone?’
“‘To git more pain’ter money,’ says I, ‘that I arns for him nights.’
“‘I think dad’s got money ’nough,’ says she, ‘without stealin’ your’n,
that you arn nights off on that Oneida Lake.’
“I says, with tears in my eyes, ‘I know it’s hard, Lecta; but as long as
master lives, I shan’t git anything but a striped back; and what I arns
nights, he puts in his own pockets.’
“‘I know it’s hard, Peter,’ says Lecta; ‘but there’s an end comin’ to
all this; and dad won’t live _always, perhaps_.’ And I’d often heard her
say, arter master had been abusin’ on me, ‘I declare, I shouldn’t be a
bit astonished at all, to see the devil come, and take dad off,
bodily—_so there_.’
“Well, while I stood there a cryin’, out comes Julia, and asks me what I
was a cryin’ at? ‘What’s the matter?’ says she.
“‘Matter ’nough,’ says I, ‘for master takes all I can arn days and
nights, tu.’
“‘What?’ says Julia, ‘dad han’t gone up to Ludlow’s arter your pain’ter
money?’
“‘Yes he has,’ I says.
“‘Well,’ says she, ‘it’s no mor’n you can expect from a dumb old hog.’ ☜
Now, that speech come from a _darter_, and a pretty smart darter tu, and
it was jist coarse ’nough language to use ’bout master, tu; but Miss
Julia never was in the habit of makin’ coarse speeches. ‘But never mind,
Peter,’ says she, ‘’twill be time to take wheat down to Albany, pretty
soon, and then you’ll git pay for your pain’ter.’
“‘Yis,’ says I, ‘and I’ll git pay for a good many other things, tu.’
☞ “Now, Mr. L——, I wants to ax you what reason, or right, there is, in
the first place, of stealin’ a man’s body and soul, to make a slave on
him? ☜ _and then for stealin’ his money he gits for killin’ pain’ters,
nights_?
☞ But the slave ain’t a _man_, and can’t be, a slave is a _thing_; he’s
jist what the slave laws calls him, ☞ a chattel, property, jist like a
_horse_, and like a horse _he can’t own the very straw he sleeps on_.
But, never mind, ☞ there’s a judgment day a comin’ bim’by. ☜ ‘And when
he maketh inquisition for blood, he remembereth them.’ You recollect you
preached from that text a Sunday or two ago, and said, if my memory
sarves me right, that, at the judgment day, God would require of every
slaveholder in the universe, the blood of every soul he bought, and
sold, and owned, _as property_; for ’twas trafficin’ in the image of the
great God Almighty. Ah! that’s true, and I felt so when you said it.”
A. “Why, Peter, it appears that your master was not only _cruel_, but
_mean_.”
P. “_Mean_? I guess he was, why, I’ll tell you a story, and when I git
to the end on it, you’ll see what mean, means:—
“We lived near the Lake, and master had a fine sail boat that cost a
good deal of money, and the young folks round there, that felt pretty
smart, used to sail out in it now and then, and I was captain. One day
there comes four couples, and they wanted to sail out on the Lake with
our gals, and so out we went. Susan Tucker, one of the gals, was a
high-lived thing, and the calkalation was, to go down about three miles,
and the wind was quarterin’ on the larboard side. Well, as I sat on the
starn of the boat, she comes, and sets down on the gunnel, and I says,
‘Susan, that ain’t a very fit place for you to set;’ for the wind was
kind a bafflin’. She replies, ‘I guess there ain’t any danger,’ and
she’d no sooner got the words out of her mouth, than there come a sudden
flaw in the wind, and that made the main boom jibe, and it struck her
overboard, and on we went, for we had a considerable headway,—well, I
let up into the wind, and hollered out, ‘ain’t any body a goin’ to
help?’ and there set her _suitor scart to death_, and all the rest on
’em. Well, I off with all my rags but my pantaloons, and I kept them on
out of modesty till the last thing, and then I slipped out on ’em, like
a black snake out of his skin, and put out. I swam, I guess, ten rods,
and come to where the blubbers come up, and lay on my face, and looked
down into the water to see when she come up; and pretty soon I see her a
comin’, and she come up within a foot I guess of the top, some distance
from me, and sallied away agin. I keep on the look out, and pretty soon
she comes up agin, and as soon as I see, I dove for her, and went down I
guess six feet; and my plan was to catch her round the neck, and when I
did, she seized her left arm round my right shoulder, and hung tight. I
fetched a sudden twist, and brought her across my back, and riz up to
the top of the water, and started for the shore, and I had one arm and
two legs to work with, and she grew heavier and heavier, and I looked to
the shore with watery eyes, I tell you. Finally I got all beat out, and
my stomach was filled with water, and I thought I must give up. Well,
while I stood there a treadin’ water a minute, I thinks I’d better save
myself and let her go, and so not both be drowned. I hated to, but I
shook her off my back, and she hung tight to my shoulder, and that
brought me on my side; and I kept one arm a goin’ to keep us up, and
cast my eyes ashore, and gin up that we must go down, and jist that
minute a young man come swimmin’ along, and sings out, ‘Pete, where is
she?’ and I answers, as well as I could, for I was now a sinkin’, and
she was out of sight of him, and says, ‘under me,’ and he dove, and
catched her under his arm, and with such force, it broke her loose from
me, and off he put for the shore; and I gin up that _I_ must sink, and
so down I begins to go, and I recollect I felt kind a happy that Susan
was safe, if _I_ was a goin’ to die, for I loved her, and jist then
another man come along, and hollers out, ‘Pete, give me hold of your
hand.’ I couldn’t speak, but I hears him, and I knew ’nough to reach out
my hand, and he took hold on it, and by some means, or other, foucht me
on to his back out of the water, and finally got me safe ashore: and
sure ’nough, there we all was, and the first thing I knew, he run his
finger down my throat, and that made me fling up Jonah, and when I had
hove up ’bout a gallon of water, I begins to feel like Peter agin, and I
sees I was as naked as an eel, and I set still in the sand. Well, I
looked out on the Lake, and there was the boat, and this feller, Susan’s
suitor, was a rale goslin’, and so scart, that he couldn’t even jump
into the water arter his lady love; and there she was a rockin’ in the
troughs, (_i.e._ the boat,) and one of these same young men that came
out arter us, swum out for her, and catched hold of her bow chain, and
towed her ashore; and I gits my clothes out, for up to this time I felt
egregious streaked, all stark naked there, and I on with my clothes, and
goes to Susan, and she was a comin’ tu, and as soon as she could speak,
she says, ‘where’s Peter?’ I says, ‘I’m here, Miss Susan;’ and she says,
‘and so am I, and if it hadn’t a been for you, I should have been in the
bottom of that Lake.” And while we was a talkin’ there, who should come
up but her father, and he says, ‘my dear child how happened all this?’
“‘Pa,’ says she, ‘it all happened through my carelessness; Peter warned
me of my danger, but I didn’t mind him, and I fell off.’
“‘Who saved you out of the water?’ says Mr. Tucker; ‘that poor black boy
there, that’s whipped and starved and abused so,’ says Susan; then she
turns round to me, still cryin,’ and says ‘Peter, have you hurt you
much, my dear fellow?”
“‘No, not much, I guess, Miss Susan,’ says I. Mr. Tucker then says,
‘come darter, can you walk as fur as the carriage?’
“‘Yes, Sir,’ says she, ‘and Peter must go along with us, tu—come Peter,
come along up to our house.’ ‘Yes, Peter, come along,’ says Mr. Tucker,
a cryin’. ‘Yes, Sir,’ says I, as soon ever as I’ve locked the boat;’ and
he says, ‘if you’ll _run_, I’ll wait for you.’ Well, I did run, and lock
the boat, and put the key in my pocket, and come back to the carriage,
and says he, ‘Git in, Peter.’
“‘No, Sir,’ says I, ‘I’ll _walk_.’
“‘Oh! Pa,’ says Susan, ‘have Peter git in, I want him with us;’ and,
finally, I got in, and then Mr. Tucker drives on up to his house. When
we got opposite master’s, Mr. Tucker calls out to him, and says, ‘I want
to take your boy up to my house a leetle while;’ and he hollered out
‘what’s the matter?’ So Mr. Tucker tells him all ’bout it; and says he,
“‘Nigger, where’s the boat?’
“‘Locked, Sir.’
“‘Where’s the key?’
“‘In my pocket, Sir.’
“‘Let’s have it!’
“So I handed it out, and when all on us felt so kind’a tender, and his
speakin’ _so cross_, and not carein’ anything for it, oh! it did seem
that he was worse than ever. ☜
“‘Go,’ says he, ‘but be back in season.’ Oh! how stern! Well, we comes
to Mr. Tucker’s house, and Mrs. Tucker cried and wrung her hands in
agony; and Rebecca, her sister, cried and screamed, and Edwin, her
brother, made a dreadful _adoo_; and Susan says, ‘why, don’t be
frightened so, for I ain’t hurt any;’ and so we sat down and told all
about it, and talked a good while, and Susan said, ‘but I shall always
remember that I owe my life to Peter, and he’s my noble friend.’ Well,
pretty soon supper was ready; we all sot down, I ‘mong the rest,
although I was a _poor black outcast_—and Susan, she sat down and
drinked a cup of tea, and they wanted her to go to bed, but she
wouldn’t, and she axed me if I wouldn’t have _this_, and if I wouldn’t
have _that_; and, in fact, the whole family seemed to feel grateful, and
I think I never enjoyed myself better than I did at that table. I didn’t
think so much of the _victuals_ as I did of the _folks_.
“Well, arter supper Mrs. Tucker says, ‘well, Susan, what you goin’ to
_give Peter_?’
“‘Why, Ma, anything that Pa will let me.’ ‘Pa says anything, my dear,
that Peter wants out of the store, you may give him.’
“So Pa hands Susan the key and says, ‘go into the store and give him a
good handkerchief, and I’ll be in by that time.’ So we went in, and she
gin me the handkercher, and then Mr. Tucker come in, and took down two
pieces of handsome English broad-cloths,—oh! how they shone! one piece
was green, and t’other was blue, and says he, ‘Peter, you may have a
suit off of either of them pieces you like best, from head to foot.’
“I says, ‘I can’t pay for ’em, and master would _thrash me_, if he knew
I bought ’em.’
“Mr. Tucker says, ‘you’ve paid for ’em already, and as much agin more;’
and I recollect he said some Bible varse, ‘as ye did it unto one of the
least of mine, ye did it unto me.’ And so he measured off two and a half
yards of blue for a coat, and one and a quarter green for pantaloons,
and picks me out a handsome vest pattern, and three and a half yards of
fine Holland linen for a shirt, and threw in the trimmin’s—and then
picks me out a beaver hat, marked $7 50—then a pair of shoes, with
buckles, and turns round and says, ‘now, Susan, you take these things up
to the house;’ and then he gin me a new handsome French crown, and
filled all my pockets with raisins, and so we went into the house, and
Mrs. Tucker measures me; and Mr. Tucker, says he, ‘now, Peter, you’d
better run home, and say nothin’ to master and mistress, but come up
here next Sunday morning, airly.’
“And so I puts out for home, and next day Susan sends for ‘Lecta and
Polly, our gals, and they stayed there three days, and had what I calls
an abolition meetin’; and, arter the old folks was gone to bed one
night, ‘Lecta comes to me and says, ‘Peter, you’ve got a dreadful
handsome suit made:’ and Polly says, ‘yis, that’s what we’ve been up to
Mr. Tucker’s so long about,—we’ve got ’em all done, and a fine Holland
shirt for you, all ruffled off for you round the bosom and wristbands,
and we want to go up to Ingen Fields to meetin’, next Sunday, and I’ll
ask father to let you drive the iron grays for us.
“Well, Sunday comes, and I goes and tackles up the grays and carriage,
and ’twas a genteel establishment, and drove up to the door, and ‘Lecta
tells me to drive up to Mr. Tucker’s, and change my clothes, and leave
my old ones up there; and so I drove up to Mr. Tucker’s in a hurry, and
went in, and Mrs. Tucker, says she, ‘now Peter, wash your hands and
feet, and face clean;’ and I did. And Mr. Tucker says, ‘now, Peter, comb
your hair;’ and I did. Well, he gin me a comb, and so I combed it as
well as I could, for _’twas all knots_; and then Mrs. Tucker opened the
bedroom door, and says she ‘Peter, now go in there and dress yourself;”
and I did; and out I come, and she made me put on a pair of
clock-stockin’s, and she put a white cravat round my neck; and Mr.
Tucker says, ‘now, Peter, stand afore the glass;’ and I did; and then I
got my beaver on, and there I stood afore the glass, and strutted like a
crow in a gutter, and turned one way and then t’other, and twisted one
way and then t’other, and I tell you I felt fine; and Susan says, ‘Pa,
there’s one thing we’ve forgot.’ So she runs into the store and bring
out a pair of black silk gloves, and hands ’em to me, and says, ‘be
careful on ’em, won’t you, Peter.’ Then I was fixed out, and ’twas the
finest suit I ever had. It cost above seventy dollars.
“Well, I took the gals in; and drove over, and took our gals in, and off
we started for Ingen Fields. The old folks had gone on afore us in the
gig, and we come up and passed ’em, and _if master didn’t stare at me,
I’ll give up_.
“Arter we got there, I hitches my horses, and starts, and walks along to
the ‘black pew,’ ☜ as straight as a candle; and I out with my white
handkercher, and wipes the seat off, and down I sot; and I tell you,
_there warn’t any crook in my back that day_.
“And master set, and viewed me from head to foot, all day; and I don’t
b’lieve he heard one single bit of the sarmint all day—he seemed to be
thunderstruck. Well, arter meetin’ we drove home, and I shifts my
clothes, and puts the team out, and comes into the house; and master
gives me a dreadful cross look, and says, ‘Nigger, where did you git
them clothes?’
“‘Mr. Tucker gin ’em to me, Sir,’ I says.
“‘What did Mr. Tucker give ’em to you for?’ he says, in rage.
“‘For savin’ Susan’s life, Sir,’ I answers.
“‘_Susan’s life?_ you _devil_! What right has Mr. Tucker got to give
_you such_ a suit of clothes, without my liberty? Hand me that coat.’
And I did, but I felt bad.
“Well, he took it, and held it out, and says he, ‘Why, nigger, that’s a
better coat than I ever had on my back, _you cuss—you_;’ and at that he
took it, and flung it on the floor in rage. I picks it up, and hands it
to ‘Lecta, and she puts it in her chist. I had the pleasure of wearing
that coat one Sunday more, and then ☞ he took it, and wore it out
himself! ☜
“The gals says, ‘Why, father, _how can_ you take away that coat?’
“‘Shet _your_ heads, or you’ll git a tunin’.’
“‘Well, father, but how _’twill look_—and what will _Mr. Tucker’s folks
think of you_?’
“‘Shet your dam heads, or I’ll take away the rest of his clothes; for
he’s a struttin’ about here as big as a meetin’ house. I’ll do as I
please with my _nigger’s things_! ☞ He’s my property!! ☜ It’s a dam pity
if _my nigger’s things_ don’t belong to me!’[4] ☜
Footnote 4:
And with the same propriety, might he say, that his nigger’s _soul_
belonged to him; or, if he possessed salvation by Christ, that his
title to heaven belonged to him. With such premises, he could
logically prove that he could _kill_ his slave, and do no wrong, as he
would innocently kill his ox, or other property. Here we see the
legitimate and necessary inference of this barbarous, inhuman and
wicked position, that it is right, under certain circumstances, to
_own property in man_. A man is not _safe_, as long as he acknowledges
this right; for if he believes it _ever_ can exist, he will _exercise_
it as soon as circumstances are favorable, and become one of the most
barbarous and abandoned of slaveholders in an hour.]
“Now, Mr. L——, he robbed me of _myself_, then of my _money_, and then of
my _clothes_, that a good man gin me for savin’ his darter’s life. Now
you see what _mean, means_.
“One day, arter this, I met Mr. Tucker in the road, and says he, ‘Well,
Peter, how do you git along?’ ‘Oh! Sir, well ’nough; only master has
took my clothes away you gin me, and is a wearin’ them out himself.’
“‘What!’ says he, ‘not them clothes I gin you?’
“‘Oh! yis, Sir; and I thinks it’s cruel to me, and insultin’ you most
distressedly.’
“‘Well,’ said Mr. Tucker, ‘he ought to be hung up by the tongue atwixt
the heavens and ’arth, till he is _dead_, DEAD, DEAD, without any mercy
from the Lord or the devil.’” ☜
A. “Well, Peter, I’ve seen cruel and _mean_ things, but that is without
exception the meanest thing I ever heard of in my life. Where do you
suppose the wretch has gone to, Peter?”
P. “He has gone unto the presence of a God, who hates oppression and
oppressors with all his heart; and _God will take care of_ him, I tell
you, and _he’ll do it right tu_.”
A. “Yes, Peter, such men are rebels against Jehovah’s government, and
it’s absolutely necessary for God to punish them, unless they reform;
it’s as necessary for God to send such men to hell in the world to come,
as it is for us to bang a murderer, or put him in prison. And, Peter,
which had you rather be, the slaveholder or the slave?”
P. “Domine, I’d rather be the _most miserablest slave in the univarse_,
here and herearter, than to be the _best slaveholder_ in creation; for I
wouldn’t, under any circumstances, _own a human bein’_. The sin lies
more in the ownin’ property in a human bein’, than in the ‘busin’ on
’em, ‘cordin’ to my way of thinkin’.”
A. “You’re _right_, Peter; and there will be no progress made in the
destruction of slavery, until you destroy the right of property in
man!!”
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