Page:Sketchesinhistory00pett.pdf/164

158 twelve or thirteen years old, her master brought home a young dog of the St. Bernard breed. His name was Prince, and he was trained to watch the premises. The first time she saw the great, clumsy looking puppy, she said to herself, (she told her plans to no one but herself,) “Now I’ll pet this dog and make him love me, and some day we will escape together;” so whenever opportunity favored she encouraged the children, both white and black, to tease Prince and abuse him, when she would come to the rescue, drive away the children, and then pet and feed him. She contrived to feed him such things as he liked best, and to play with him every day, and at night she would sometimes lie down by him on the piazza, lay her head on him and go to sleep, so that when Prince was two years old he would come or go at her bidding, though she was careful never to exercise her control of him in the presence of her master. When she was about fifteen years old she had laid down one evening on the porch with Prince, and happened to overhear a conversation between her master and a trader, and tp her astonishment she learned that her market value was more than any two of the strongest men on the plantation, and that in a year or two more her master expected to obtain a much larger price for her. She had never been treated harshly, yet the degradation of her condition was seldom absent from her thoughts. Not many days after the incident above related, her master and mistress went to Mobile to be absent a week. The next night, when all was still about the house, Oneda, with a little package containing a few articles of clothing and some food, went silently out of the house, and passing near to where Prince was lying, he followed her. She took a road leading west towards the Mobile & Ohio R. R., then striking a road running directly north, she turned into it and went on all night. Prince