Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/148

146 taking large baskets, and filling them well, we generally contrived to get as many as we could consume.

When the peaches ripened, they were guarded with more rigor — peach brandy being an article which is nowhere more highly prized than in South Carolina. There were on the plantation more than a thousand peach trees, growing on poor sandy fields, which were no longer worth the expense of cultivation. The best peaches grow upon the poorest sand-hills.

We were allowed to take three bushels of peaches every day, for the use of the quarter; but we could, and did eat at least three times that quantity, for we stole at night that which was not given us by day. I confess that I took part in these thefts, and I do not feel that I committed any wrong, against either God or man, by my participation in the common danger that we ran, for we well knew the consequences that would have followed detection,

After the feast at laying by the corn and cotton, we had no meat for several weeks; and it is my opinion that our master lost money by the economy he practised at this season of the year.

I now entered upon a new scene of life. My true value had not yet been ascertained by my present owner; and whether I was to hold the rank of a first or second rate hand, could only be determined by an experience of my ability to pick cotton.