One evening, his back all bloody and his face swollen, Benjamin came home. The overseer had been in a bad temper, had beaten the little boy with a whip and hit him in the face with his fist.
“I want to die,” cried Benjamin, while the dog softly and gently licked his wounds. “I can’t stand it any longer. My parents are gone, I am entirely deserted, everyone is unkind to me. Dog, dear dog, what shall I do?”
“Run away,” replied the dog.
“Where to? They will catch me and beat me again.”
The dog thought hard for a while. [[45]]
“We must go north,” said he at last. “There people are better than they are here. They do not want the Negroes to be slaves. We must run away there.”
“I don’t know the way,” complained Benjamin.
“I will lead you. Morning and night, when everybody is asleep, we will go.”
And so it happened. The moon was a small white sickle in the sky, the great trees tossed weird, black shadows on the earth, all was deathly quiet, only once in a while the leaves rustled sleepily. Benjamin and the dog ran softly on their tiptoes, out of the hut, and went toward the great river. All night they wandered along the side of the river, and when morning came the dog looked for a safe hiding place, for the short legs of little Benjamin had not carried him very far, and there was still the danger that the servants of the rich man might trace him.