Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/165

 and sole mistress of the estate. Upon this occasion, her good nature, and her sense of justice, prompted her to extend the same humane system to the management of the plantation, which she had always acted upon, in the government of her own household. During her husband's life, the servants' quarter had been three miles or more from the House; and as the slaves were never allowed to come there, unless they were sent for, Mrs Montgomery saw scarcely any thing of them, and knew very little of their wants and grievances, and next to nothing of the general management of the estate. Indeed she spent the greater portion of every year, in visiting her relations in Virginia, or in trips to the northern cities; and when at home, her husband's manifest disinclination to her having any thing to do with those matters, had always prevented her from meddling in any way, with the plantation affairs.

But when her husband was dead, and the plantation and slaves had become her own property, she could not reconcile herself to the idea of taking no thought, concern or care for the welfare and well-being of more than a hundred human creatures, who toiled from morning to night for her sole benefit. She resolved upon a total change of system; and ordered the servants quarter to be removed near the house, so that she might be able to go there daily, and have an opportunity of inspecting and relieving the wants and grievances of her servants.:

She was shocked at the miserable pittance of food and clothing which her husband had allowed them, and at the amount of labor which he had exacted. She ordered their allowances to be increased, and their tasks to be diminished. Several instances of outrageous severity having reached her ears, she dismissed her overseer and procured a new one. The servants no sooner discovered that their mistress had interested herself in their welfare, than she was overwhelmed with petitions, appeals and complaints. One wanted a blanket, another a kettle, and a third, a pair of shoes. Each asked for some trifling gift, which it seemed very hard to refuse; and every request that was granted was followed by half-a-dozen others, equally trifling and equally reasonable. But before the end of the year, these small