Below the large kennip-tree already mentioned, sat Sally Frenche, enthroned in state, in a low wicker chair, with a small table beside her, on which lay an instrument of punishment, ycleped a cowskin, a long twisted thong of leather, with a short lash of whipcord at the end of it. She was nothing loth, I saw, to apply this to the shoulders of her handmaidens when they appeared behind hand, or sluggish in their obedience; and even the free brownies of her household were not always exempt from a taste thereof.
Two nice showily-dressed negresses were speaking to her. They each balanced a large wooden bowl on their heads, full of handkerchiefs, gown-pieces, and beads, and appeared to be taking their instructions as to the prices they were to ask during the day's sale. They departed—when a black fellow, naked all to his trowsers, with a long clear knife in his hand, approached, and also took some orders that I could not hear, but apparently they had been the death-warrant of a poor little pig, which he immediately clapper-clawed; and, like a spider bolting with a fly, disappeared with it, squeaking like fury, into his den—the kitchen.
There were several little naked negro children running about Mrs Sally, but the objects of her immediate attention were a brown male child, of about eight years old, and two little mulatto girls, a year or two his seniors apparently. The children had their primers in their hands, and Sally held an open book in one of hers.
The girls appeared, with the aptness of their sex, to have said their lessons to her satisfaction, but the little cock-yellowhammer seemed a dull concern; and as I looked, she gave him a smart switch over his broadest end with her cowskin.
"Try again, you stupid black-head"—(his head was black enough certainly)—"now mind—what doz you do wid your eyes?"
"I sees wid dem."
"You is right for one time—what doz you do wid your yees?"—(ears.)
"I hears wid dem."
"Bery well—you sees you is not so stupid when you attends—you only lazy—so now—what doz you do wid your foots?"
"Walks wid dem."