After a prolonged conversation and a good and refreshing season of prayer I took my departure for my camp, never expecting to meet my relative again, and never have.
We started next morning on our way to Memphis, and traveled into Memphis, after three days, on a very fine road for the South, known as the state-line road. We drove to the cotton-yard, unloaded, and received the receipts for the cotton, and put up for the night at a wagon-yard. I spent this night in prayer and supplication that God would save me from the slave-pen and the auctioneer's block; and my prayers were responded to in my protection. The next morning we started for home by what was known as the pigeon-roost route, in order to save toll and other expenses.
The weight on my mind was removed, and I felt happy and thankful. I was not sold from the shambles. I prayed, I sung, and I shouted by turns. We arrived at home, and I waited patiently for my next order.
My young master soon informed me, however, that I might hire myself out, if I could find and one that would hire me. Good! God was on my side. With a light heart and truly happy I set about my preparations to hire myself out; and the very first thing I did was to go to my cabin and thank God for his goodness, and ask for his protection and guidance. Always praying? Yes, I was always at it. My heart was big with love to God.
CHAPTER IV.
Start out on my Travels to Hunt a New Master—Find Mr. Dansley—Hire to Him—Thirty Dollars per Month for my Master and Five Dollars for Myself—Wilson Astonished—Appointed Superintendent of Dansley's Farm—Rules and Regulations—Peace and Tranquillity—My Moral Labors Successful—Prayer and Social Meetings—Meetings in the Woods—Quarrel and Fight like very Brothers—Time comes to be Moved to Another Field of Labor.
It was customary in the slave states to allow slaves to hire themselves for their masters to such as the slaves themselves desired to work for. Sometimes this arrangement was made to save the master trouble. In my case I was instructed to find a place to work at thirty dollars per month and board, and then to return and report to Wilson, who would then give the necessary permission in writing, which would stand as a contract between him and my employer.
My first object was to find a Christian man to hire to who would allow me to pray and preach on all proper occasions, and who would rather assist me than hinder me in my efforts to make Christians of the blacks. I cared nothing for the manual labor I had to do, if I could only be placed in a position to do my great Master's work. His work was my life-labor. On this particular account I was very careful who I applied to. In a day or two I applied to Mr. Dansley, whose plantation was about eighteen miles from Wilson's, and who had been recommended to me as being the kind of man I was hunting for. Mr. Dansley questioned me closely, and examined me as to my reasons for wanting to hire out, and why my master wished me to hire out when there was plenty of work on his own place for me to do. I confessed frankly that I could read and write, and knew something about figures, and was desirous to serve God and do his work by preaching, and in every other way in my power; that my master was afraid that I would demoralize his other slaves by learning them to read and write and by preaching to them, and in order that I might not do that he wanted me off the plantation; that he could not sell me because I was the property of his wife, and that she would not consent to have me sold out of the family. "If those are faults, as considered by Mr. Wilson, I am very well satisfied that you will perform your part of the contract notwithstanding; yet what Mr. Wilson is pleased to consider faults in you I deem good points in your character and disposition, therefore I will hire you, hoping that your duty to God will include your duty to me under the contract of hire." I told him that was my understanding of my duty to God; that it comprised, in my condition of servitude, my duty to my slave-master. I informed Mr. Dansley that my master, Wilson, wanted thirty dollars per month for my services, and that I wanted five dollars per month for myself, making in all thirty-five dollars per month. He was satisfied to pay that amount, and gave me a letter to carry to Wilson stating that he would hire me at thirty dollars per month, yet he agreed with me that he would pay me, besides, five dollars per month.
When Wilson gave me instructions to hire myself out at not less than thirty dollars per month, he hoped I would fail, from the fact that wages for field-hands were only twenty-five dollars per month; and when I went back with Mr. Dansley's letter so soon, he was somewhat surprised. He would have opened his eyes with wonder if he had known that Dansley was to pay me five dollars per month extra. He gave me a written permission to work for Mr. Dansley as long as Dansley should want me. I immediately went to Dansley's, and stayed with him nine months—nine months of contented time.