TROUBLES OF CHILDHOOD.
Col. Lloyd’s plantation--Aunt Katy--Her cruelty and ill-nature--
Capt. Anthony’s partiality to Aunt Katy--Allowance of food--
Author’s hunger--Unexpected rescue by his mother--The reproof of
Aunt Katy--Sleep--A slave-mother’s love--Author’s inheritance--
His mother’s acquirements--Her death.
Once established on the home plantation of Col. Lloyd--I was with
the children there, left to the tender mercies of Aunt Katy, a slave
woman who was to my master what he was to Col. Lloyd. Disposing of
us in classes or sizes, he left to Aunt Katy all the minor details
concerning our management. She was a woman who never allowed herself to
act greatly within the limits of delegated power, no matter how broad
that authority might be. Ambitious of old master’s favor, ill-tempered
and cruel by nature, she found in her present position an ample field
for the exercise of her ill-omened qualities. She had a strong hold
upon old master, for she was a first-rate cook, and very industrious.
She was therefore greatly favored by him--and as one mark of his favor
she was the only mother who was permitted to retain her children around
her, and even to these, her own children, she was often fiendish in her
brutality. Cruel, however, as she sometimes was to her own children,
she was not destitute of maternal feeling, and in her instinct to
satisfy their demands for food, she was often guilty of starving me and
the other children. Want of food was my chief trouble during my first
summer here. Captain Anthony, instead of allowing a given quantity of
food to each slave, committed the allowance for all to Aunt Katy, to
be divided by her, after cooking, amongst us. The allowance consisted
of coarse corn meal, not very abundant, and which by passing through
Aunt Katy’s hands, became more slender still for some of us. I have
often been so pinched with hunger, as to dispute with old “Nep,” the
dog, for the crumbs which fell from the kitchen table. Many times
have I followed with eager step, the waiting-girl when she shook the
table-cloth, to get the crumbs and small bones flung out for the dogs
and cats. It was a great thing to have the privilege of dipping a piece
of bread into the water in which meat had been boiled--and the skin
taken from the rusty bacon was a positive luxury. With this description
of the domestic arrangements of my new home, I may here recount a
circumstance which is deeply impressed on my memory, as affording
a bright gleam of a slave-mother’s love, and the earnestness of a
mother’s care. I had offended Aunt Katy. I do not remember in what way,
for my offences were numerous in that quarter, greatly depending upon
her moods as to their heinousness, and she had adopted her usual mode
of punishing me: namely, making me go all day without food. For the
first hour or two after dinner time, I succeeded pretty well in keeping
up my spirits; but as the day wore away, I found it quite impossible to
do so any longer. Sundown came, but no bread; and in its stead came the
threat from Aunt Katy, with a scowl well suited to its terrible import,
that she would starve the life out of me. Brandishing her knife, she
chopped off the heavy slices of bread for the other children, and put
the loaf away, muttering all the while her savage designs upon myself.
Against this disappointment, for I was expecting that her heart would
relent at last, I made an extra effort to maintain my dignity, but when
I saw the other children around me with satisfied faces, I could stand
it no longer. I went out behind the kitchen wall and cried like a fine
fellow. When wearied with this, I returned to the kitchen, sat by the
fire and brooded over my hard lot. I was too hungry to sleep. While
I sat in the corner, I caught sight of an ear of Indian corn upon an
upper shelf. I watched my chance and got it; and shelling off a few
grains, I put it back again. These grains I quickly put into the hot
ashes to roast. I did this at the risk of getting a brutal thumping,
for Aunt Katy could beat as well as starve me. My corn was not long in
roasting, and I eagerly pulled it from the ashes, and placed it upon
a stool in a clever little pile. I began to help myself, when who but
my own dear mother should come in. The scene which followed is beyond
my power to describe. The friendless and hungry boy, in his extremest
need, found himself in the strong protecting arms of his mother. I
have before spoken of my mother’s dignified and impressive manner. I
shall never forget the indescribable expression of her countenance
when I told her that Aunt Katy had said she would starve the life out
of me. There was deep and tender pity in her glance at me, and a fiery
indignation at Aunt Katy at the same moment, and while she took the
corn from me, and gave in its stead a large ginger cake, she read Aunt
Katy a lecture which was never forgotten. That night I learned as I
had never learned before, that I was not only a child, but somebody’s
child. I was grander upon my mother’s knee than a king upon his throne.
But my triumph was short. I dropped off to sleep, and waked in the
morning to find my mother gone and myself at the mercy again of the
virago in my master’s kitchen, whose fiery wrath was my constant dread.
[Illustration: THE LAST TIME HE SAW HIS MOTHER.]
My mother had walked twelve miles to see me, and had the same distance
to travel over again before the morning sunrise. I do not remember
ever seeing her again. Her death soon ended the little communication
that had existed between us, and with it, I believe, a life full of
weariness and heartfelt sorrow. To me it has ever been a grief that I
knew my mother so little, and have so few of her words treasured in
my remembrance. I have since learned that she was the only one of all
the colored people of Tuckahoe who could read. How she acquired this
knowledge I know not, for Tuckahoe was the last place in the world
where she would have been likely to find facilities for learning. I
can therefore fondly and proudly ascribe to her, an earnest love of
knowledge. That a field-hand should learn to read in any slave State
is remarkable, but the achievements of my mother, considering the
place and circumstances, was very extraordinary. In view of this fact,
I am happy to attribute any love of letters I may have, not to my
presumed Anglo-Saxon paternity, but to the native genius of my sable,
unprotected, and uncultivated mother--a woman who belonged to a race
whose mental endowments are still disparaged and despised.