Page:The White Slave, or Memoirs of a Fugitive.djvu/57

 and we anticipated but little inconvenience from the openness of our habitation. A heap of pine straw, in one corner of our ruinous hovel, formed our bed; and sweeter slumbers, not down itself could have ensured. Out of such materials as the wainscoting of the deserted house supplied, I made two rude stools, and something that served for a table. The spring furnished us with water; our principal concern was, to provide ourselves with food. The woods and thickets produced some wild fruits; and the peach-orchard near the house, though choked and shaded by a more recent growth, still continued to bear. I was an adept in the art of snaring rabbits, and such other small game as the woods supplied. The spring which furnished us with water, was one of the heads of a little branch or brook which discharged, at a short distance, into a larger stream. In that stream there were fish. But our chief resource was in the neighboring corn-fields, which already furnished roasting ears, and from which I did not scruple to draw a plentiful supply.

On the whole, — though we were both quite unaccustomed to so wild a livelihood, — we passed our time very agreeably. Those who are always idle can never know the true luxury of idleness, the real pleasure with which he who has been pushed to work against his will, relaxes his strained muscles, and delivers himself up to the delight of doing nothing. I used to lie for hours, in a dreamy sort of indolence, outstretched upon the shady slope, enjoying the sweet consciousness of being my own master, and luxuriating in the idea that I need come or go at no one's bidding, ‘put might work or be idle as suited my own good will. No wonder that emancipated slaves are inclined to indolence. It is to them a new pleasure. Labor, in their minds, is indissolubly associated with servitude and the whip; and not to work, they have ever been taught to look upon as the badge and peculiar distinction of freedom.

The present was passing pleasantly enough; but it was necessary to be thinking about the future. We had always regarded our present place of refuge as temporary only; and it was now time to think of leaving it. I should have esteemed it delightful indeed, to pass a whole life of solitude and seclusion with Cassy, where, if we had lacked the