I remember when Boss
made a change in our overseer. It was the beginning of the year. Riley,
one of the slaves, who was a principal plower, was not on hand for work
one Monday morning, having been delayed in fixing the bridle of his
mule, which the animal, for lack of something better, perhaps, had been
vigorously chewing and rendered nearly useless. He was, therefore,
considerably behind time, when he reached the field. Without waiting to
learn what was the reason for the delay, the overseer sprang upon him
with his bull whip, which was about seven feet long, lashing him with
all his strength, every stroke leaving its mark upon the poor man's
body, and finally the knot at the end of the whip buried itself in the
fleshy part of the arm, and there came around it a festering sore. He
suffered greatly with it, until one night his brother took out the knot,
when the poor fellow was asleep, for he could not bear any one to touch
it when he was awake. It was awful to hear the cracking of that whip as
it was laid about Riley--one would have thought that an ox team had
gotten into the mire, and was being whipped out, so loud and sharp was
the noise!
I usually slept in the dining room on the floor. Early one morning an
old slave, by name of "Uncle Jim," came and knocked at the window, and
upon my jumping up and going to him, he told me to tell Boss that Uncle
Jim was there.
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