Page:Fifty Years in Chains, or the Life of an American Slave.djvu/281

Rh my affairs in such a way as to get the half of Saturday to myself. This I did by prevailing on my master to set my task for the week on Monday morning.

Saturday was appropriated to hunting, if I was not obliged to work all day, and I soon became pretty expert in the use of my gun. I made salt licks in the woods, to which the deer came at night, and I shot them from a seat of clapboards that was placed on the branches of a tree. Raccoons abounded here, and were of a large size, and fat at all seasons. In the month of April I saw the ground thickly strewed with nuts, the growth of the last year. I now began to live well, notwithstanding the persecution that my mistress still directed against me, and to feel myself, in some measure, an independent man.

The temper of my mistress grew worse daily, and to add to my troubles, the health of my master began to decline, and towards the latter part of autumn he told me that already he felt the symptoms of approaching death.

This was a source of much anxiety and trouble to me, for I saw clearly, if I ever fell under the unbridled dominion of my mistress, I should regret the worst period of my servitude in South Carolina. I was afraid as winter came on that my master might grow worse and pass away in the spring — for his disease was the consumption of the lungs.