Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/37

 the other, and squinting at me with one of his little twinkling grey eyes. Having cursed me to his satisfaction for "a blunder-head," he bade me follow him to the field. A large clumsy hoe, with a handle six feet long, was put into my hands, and I was kept hard at work all day.

At dark, I was suffered to quit the field, and the overseer pointed out to me a miserable little hovel, about ten feet square, and half as many high, with a leaky roof, and without either floor or window. This was to be my house, or rather I was to share it with Billy, a young slave about my own age.

To this wretched hut, I removed a chest, containing my clothes and a few other things, such as a slave is permitted to possess. By way of bed and bedding, I received a single blanket, about as big as a large pocket handkerchief; and a basket of corn and a pound or two of damaged bacon, were given me as my week's allowance of provisions.. But as I was totally destitute of pot, kettle, knife, plate, or dish of any kind, — for these are conveniences which slaves must procure as they can, — I was in some danger of being obliged to make my supper on raw bacon. Billy saw my distress and took pity on me. He helped me beat my corn into hominy, and lent me his own little kettle to cook it in; so that about midnight I was able to break a fast of some sixteen or twenty hours. My chest being both broad and long, served tolerably well for bed, chair and table. I sold a part of my clothes, which were indeed much too fine for a field hand; and having bought myself a knife, a spoon and a kettle, I was able to put my house-keeping into tolerable order.

My accommodations were as good as a field hand had a right to expect; but they were not such as to make me particularly happy; especially as I had been used to something better. My hands were blistered with the hoe, and coming in at night completely exhausted by a sort of labor to which I was not accustomed, it was no very agreeable recreation to be obliged to beat hominy, and to be up till after midnight preparing food for the next day, with the recollection too, that I was obliged to turn into the field with the first dawn of the morning. But this labor, severe