“‘Yes, ma’am; and how does master do?’
“‘None of your business, you black skunk, you.’
“So master finds I’d got home, and he sends one of the children out arter me; and in I goes, and finds him on his bed yit. He speaks, ‘You got home, have you?’ ‘Yis, Sir; and how does master do?’ ‘Oh! I’m almost dead, Peter;’ and he spoke as mild as you do. And I says, ‘I’m dreadful sorry for you;’ and I lied, tu. So I pitied him, and pretended to feel bad, and cry. And he says, ‘You must be a good boy, and take good care of the stock, till I gets well.’ And so out I goes to the barn, and sung, and danced, and felt as tickled as a boy with a new whistle, to think master had got a good bruisin’ as well as myself, and I’d got on my taps first.
“Well, for six months he was a kind of a decent man; he’d speak kind’a pleasant—for he was so ‘fraid of Abers, that he darn’t do any other way.
“Next winter followin’, I was in the barn thrashin’; and, as I stood with my back to the south door, a litter of leetle white pigs comes along, and goes to eatin’ the karnels of wheat that fell over master’s barn door sill; and I was kind’a pleased to see sich leetle fellers, they always seemed so kind’a funny; and the fust thing I knew, he struck me over the head with one of these ’ere old-fashioned pitchforks, and I fell into the straw jist like a pluck in a pail of water. I gathers as quick as I could, arter I found out I was down, and he stood, with a fork in his hand, and swore if I stirred, he’d knock me down, and pin me to the floor.
“I run out of the big door, and he arter me, with the fork in his hand; and he run me into the snow, where ’twas deep, and got me to the fence, where I was up to my middle in snow, and couldn’t move; and he was a goin’ to thrust arter me, and I hollers, and says, ‘Master, don’t stick that into me.’ ‘I will, you black devil.’ I see there was no hope for me; and I reaches out, and got hold of a stake, and as I took hold on it, as ’twas so ordered, it come out; and, as he made a plunge arter me, I struck arter him with this stake, and hit him right across the small of his back; and the way I did it warn’t slow; and he fell into the snow like a dead man; and he lay there, and didn’t stir, only one of his feet quivered; and I began to grow scart, for fear he was dyin’; and I was tempted to run into the barn, and dash my head agin’ a post, and dash my brains out; and the longer I stood there, the worse I felt, for I knew for murder a body must be hung.
“But bim’bye he begun to gasp, and gasp, and catch his breath; and he did that three or four times; and then the blood poured out of his mouth; and he says, as soon as he could speak, ‘Help me, Peter.’ And I says, ‘I shan’t.’ And he says agin’, in a low voice, ‘Oh! help me!’ I says, ‘I’ll see the devil have you, afore I’ll help you, you old heathen, you.’ And at that he draws a dreadful oath, that fairly made the snow melt; and says agin’, ‘Do you help me, you infernal cuss.’ I uses the same words agin’; and he tells me, ‘if you don’t, I’ll kill you as sure as ever I get into the house.’
“Soon he stood clear up, and walked along by the fence, and drew himself by the rails to the house; and I went to thrashin’ agin’. Pretty soon ‘Lecta comes out to the barn, and says, ‘Peter, father wants to see you.’ I says, ‘If he wants to see me mor’n I want to see him, he must come where I be;’ and I had a dreadful oath with it. And she speaks as mild as a blue-bird, and says, ‘Now, Peter, ‘tend to me. You know I’m always good to you; now if you don’t mind, you’ll lose a friend.’ That touches my feelin’s, and I starts for the house; but I ’spected to be killed as sure as I stepped across the sill.
“Well, I entered the old cellar-kitchen; and mistress locks the door, and puts the key in her side-pocket; and master set in one chair, and his arm a restin’ on another, as I set now, and he raises up, and takes down the rifle that hung in the hooks over his head on a beam; and I knew I was a dead man, for I had loaded it a few days afore for a bear; and says he, as he fetches it up to his face, and cocks it, and pints it right at my heart. ‘Now, you dam nigger, I’ll end your existence.’
“Now death stared me right in the face, and I knew I had nothin’ to lose; and the minute he aimed at me, I jumped at him like a streak, and run my head right atwixt his legs, and catched him, and flung him right over my head a tumblin’, and I did it as quick as lightnin’; and, as he fell, the rifle went off, and bored two doors, and lodged in the wall of the bedroom; and I flew and on to him, and clinched hold on his souse, and planted my knees in his belly, and jammed his old head up and down on the floor, and the way I did it warn’t to be beat.