Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/198

196 rackoons, opossums, and rabbits, as afforded us two or three meals in a week. The woman with whom I lived, understood the way of dressing an opossum, and I was careful to provide one for our Sunday dinner every week, so long as these animals continued fat and in good condition.

All the people on the plantation did not live as well as our family did, for many of the men did not understand trapping game, and others were too indolent to yo far enough from home to find good places for setting their traps. My principal trapping ground was three miles from home, and I went three times a week, always after night, to bring home my game, and keep "ny traps in good order. Many of the families in the 'quarter caught no game, and had no meat, except that which we received from the overseer, which averaged 'bout six or seven meals in the year.

Lydia, the woman whom I have mentioned heretofore, was one of the women whose husbands procured little or nothing for the sustenance of their families, and I often gave her a quarter of a rackoon or a small opossum, for which she appeared very thankful. Her health was not good — she had a bad cough, and often told me she was feverish and restless at night. It appeared clear tome that this woman's constitution was broken by hardships and. sufferings, and that she would not live long in her present mode of existence.