Author. “Good evening, Peter,—how do you do to-night?”
Peter. “Very well; and how’s the Domine?”
A. “Pretty well. Take a chair and go ahead with your story.”
P. “My mind had been made up for years to git out of my trouble,—but I thought I’d wait till spring afore I started. Things had got to sich a state, I see I must either stay and be killed myself, or kill master, or run away; and I thought ‘twould be the best course to run away; and I wanted good travellin’, and I concluded I’d wait till the movin’ was good. In the meantime, Master prosecuted Abers for assaulting him in his own house, and Abers paid the damages; I don’t know how much; and then Abers prosecuted master afore the same court, for abusin’ me, on behalf of the state. His whole family was brought forward and sworn, and testified agin’ him, and the trial lasted two days. I was brought forward, and had my shirt took off, to show the scars in my meat; and the judge says, ‘Peter, how long did he whip you in the barn?’ And I up and told him the story as straight as I could. Then the lawyers made their pleas on both sides, and the case was submitted to the jury, and out they went, and stayed half an hour, and brought in a verdict of abuse, even unto murder intent. The judge says, ‘how so?’ The foreman on the jury says, ‘because he thrice attempted to kill him with a rifle.’
“Well, his sentence finally was, to pay five hundred dollars damages, or to go to jail till he did; and be put under bonds of two thousand dollars for good behavior in future. The judge gin him half an hour to decide in; and he sot and sot till his time was up; and then the judge told the sheriff to take him to jail, and he went to get the hand-cuffs, and put ’em on to master’s hands; and the judge says, ‘screw ’em tight;’ for you see ‘master hadn’t treated the court with proper respect,’ the judge said. I should think he had the cuffs on ten minutes, and then he says, ‘I’ll pay the money;’ and the sheriff off with the cuffs, and master out with his pocket-book, and counted out the money to the sheriff, and then he gin bail, and so the matter ended.
“The judge come to me and says, ‘now, Peter, do you be faithful, and if you are abused come to me, and I’ll take care of it.
“Well, all went home, and arter that master behaved himself pretty decent towards me, only the gals said he used to say, ‘I wish I’d killed the dam nigger, and then I shouldn’t have this five hundred dollars to pay.’
“My whole fare was now better, ☞ but I still considered myself a slave, ☜ and that galled my feelin’s, and I determined I’d be free, or die in the cause; for you see, by this time, I’d larned more of the rights of human natur’, and I felt that I was a man!!
“I had this in contemplation all of three or four years afore I run, and I swore a heap ’bout it tu. The gals had made me a new suit, and had it ready for runnin’ a year afore. The gals paid for it, and kept it secret; and so a woman can keep a secret, arter all; and I had twenty-one dollars, in specie, that I’d been a gettin’ for five years, by little and little, fishin’ and chorin’, and catchin’ muskrats, that I kept from master; and I made ‘Lecta my banker; and every copper and sixpence I got I put into her hand, and now I’d got things ready for a start.
“Well, the big eclipse, as they called it, come on the 16th of June, 1806, I believe, and we had curious times, I tell ye. I was in the lot a hoein’ corn, and it begun to grow dark, right in the day time, and the birds and whip-poor-wills begun to sing, jist as in the evenin’, and the hens run to the roost, and I come to the house; and the folks had smoked-glass lookin’ through at the sun, and I axed ’em ‘what’s the matter?’ and they said ‘the moon is atwixt us and the sun.’