Page:Life and Times of Frederick Douglass (1892).djvu/137

Rh new to Master Thomas, and for it he was wholly unprepared. He was a slaveholder, without the ability to hold or manage his slaves. Failing to command their respect, both himself and wife were ever on the alert lest some indignity should be offered him by the slaves.

It was in the month of August, 1833, when I had become almost desperate under the treatment of Master Thomas, and entertained more strongly than ever the oft-repeated determination to run away,—a circumstance occurred which seemed to promise brighter and better days for us all. At a Methodist camp-meeting, held in the Bay side (a famous place for camp-meetings), about eight miles from St. Michaels, Master Thomas came out with a profession of religion. He had long been an object of interest to the church, and to the ministers, as I had seen by the repeated visits and lengthy exhortations of the latter. He was a fish quite worth catching, for he had money and standing. In the community of St. Michaels, he was equal to the best citizen. He was strictly temperate, and there was little to do for him to give him the appearance of piety, and to make him a pillar of the church. Well, the camp-meeting continued a week; people gathered from all parts of the country, and two steamboats came loaded from Baltimore. The ground was happily chosen; seats were arranged; a stand erected; a rude altar fenced in, fronting the preacher's stand, with straw in it, making a soft kneeling place for the accommodation of mourners. This place would have held at least one hundred persons. In front and on the sides of the preacher's stand, and outside the long rows of seats, rose the first class of stately tents, each vieing with the other in strength, neatness, and capacity for accommodation. Behind this first circle of tents was another, less imposing, which reached round the camp-ground to the speaker's stand. Outside this