“Well, master orders it off the table; and I goes and knocks over five chickens, and dresses ’em, and friccazeed them in a hurry, and got ’em on to the table; and I guess we didn’t hinder ’em mor’n half an hour.
“Well, nobody could stand the mutton, it stunk so; but master tells the folks to give me nothin’ else to eat; and I eat, and eat away upon it, day after day, as long as I could; and then I’d tear off bits, and hide ’em in my bosom, and carry ’em out, and fling ’em away, to git rid on it; and one night, when it stunk so bad it fairly knocked me down, I takes the whole frame and leaves for the lot with it, and buries it; and thinks, says I, now the old mutton leg won’t trouble me any more.—— ☞ But it happened, that a few days arter this, that we was ploughin’ that lot, and he was holdin’ the plough; and fust he knows, up comes the mutton leg, and fust he looks at it, and then at me, and takes it up, and scrapes the dirt off on it—and oh! how he biled!—and says he, ‘You black devil, what did you hide that mutton for?’ And he took the whip out of my hand, and cut me with it a few times; and says I, ‘Master, I won’t stand this;’ and off I run towards the house, and he arter, as fast as we could clip it; and he into the house and gits the rifle, and I see it, and oh! how I cleared the coop into the lots; and as I was a goin’ over a knoll, he let strip arter me, and I hears the ball whistle over my head. I tell ye, how it come!—and I scart enemost to death.
“Well, I wanders round a while, my heart a pittepattin’ all the time, and finally, comes back to the house. But I see him a comin’ with the rifle agin’ as I got into the lot, and I fled for shelter into the shell of an old hemlock-tree left standin’, (you’ve seen such arter a lot is burnt,) and he see me, and he let strip agin’, and whiz went the ball through the old shell, about a foot over my head, for I’d squat down, and if I hadn’t he’d a fixed me out as stiff as a maggot. He comes up, and sings out, ‘You dead, nigger?’ ‘Yis, Sir.’
“‘Well, what do ye speak for, then, you black cuss?’ Then he catches hold on me, and drags me out, and beats me with a club, till I was dead for arnest, enemost; and then, lookin’ at the hole in the tree, he turns to me, lyin’ on the ground, and says, ‘Next time I’ll bore a hole through you, you black son of a bitch. Now drive that team, and straight, tu, or you’ll catch a junk of lead into you.’
“Well, I hobbled along, and we ploughed all day; and come night, I boohooed and cried a good deal, and the children gits round me, and asks, ‘What’s the matter, Peter?’ I tells ’em, ‘Master’s been a poundin’ on me, and then he shot arter me, and I don’t know what he will do next.’ Julia speaks, and says, ‘I declare it’s a wonder the devil don’t come and take father off.’
“He orders the family not to give me any supper; but arter he’d gone to bed, the gals comes along, and one on ’em treads on my toe, and gin me the wink, and I know’d what it meant; and so I goes into the wood-house, and finds a good supper laid on a beam, where I’d got many a good bite; and went off to bed with a heavy heart.
“But, as I hate to be a tellin’ bloody stories all the time, I’ll jist give you a short one ’bout a bear; for I was as mighty a hand for bears as ever ye see.
“One night I went along arter my cows into the woods, a whistlin’ and a singin’ along, with the rifle on my shoulder, a listenin’ for my cow-bell, but couldn’t hear nothing on it; and so on I goes a good ways, and hears nothin’ yit; and I’d hearn old-fashioned people say, you must clap your ear down on the ground to hear your cow-bell, and I did, and I hears it away towards the house; and so for home I starts; and it gits to be kind’a duskish; and the first thing I hears or sees, was right afore me, a great big black bear, that riz right up out of the scrub-oaks, and stood on his hind feet; and I was so scart, I didn’t know how to manage the business; and there I stood atwixt two evils; one way I was ‘fraid of the dark, and t’other I was ‘fraid of the bear; and finally, I starts and runs from him, and he jist then down on his legs and put arter me. Well, I turns round and faces him, and he riz up on his hind feet agin’, and kind’a growled. Atwixt me and him, there was a small black oak staddle, and thinks I to myself, if I can git to that, I can hold my gun steady ’nough to shoot him; but then I was afeard I shouldn’t kill him; and if I didn’t he’d kill me. However, I starts for the staddle; and he kind’a growled, and wiggled his short tail, and seemed to be tickled to think I was a comin’ towards him. As quick as I got up to the staddle, I cocked my piece, and aimed right at his brisket, atwixt his fore legs, as near as I could, and fired—and run; and never looked behind me, to see whether I’d killed my adversary or not, and put for the house as fast I could. Well, up I come to the house, so short-winded, that I puffed and blowed like a steamboat; and old master says he, ‘What you shot, nigger?’
“‘A bear, Sir.’
“‘Where is he?’