“Well, thinks says I, ‘that’s rale curious.’ Master looked at it once, and then sot down and groaned, and fetched some very heavy sighs, and turned pale, and looked solemn; and there was two or three old Dutch women ‘round there that looked distracted; they hollered and screamed and took on terribly, and thought the world was a comin’ to an end. Well, I didn’t find out the secret of that eclipse, till a sea captain told me, long arter this. I b’lieve this eclipse happened on Tuesday; and next Sunday night, atwixt twelve and one o’clock, I started, and detarmined that if ever I went back to Gideon Morehouse’s, I’d go a dead man.
“We all went to bed as usual, but not to sleep; and so, ’bout twelve ‘clock, I went out as still as I could, and tackled up the old horse and wagon, and oh! how I felt. I was kind’a glad and kind’a sorry, and my heart patted agin my ribs hard, and I sweat till my old shirt was as wet as sock. So I hitched the horse away from the house, and went in and told the gals, and I fetched out my knapsack that had my new clothes in it, and all on us went out and got in and started off. Oh! I tell ye, the horse didn’t creep; and the gals begins to talk to me and say, ‘now, Peter, you must be honest and true, and faithful to every body, and that’s the way you’ll gain friends;’ and ‘Lecta says, ‘if you work for anybody, be careful to please the women folks, and if the women are on your side, you’ll git along well enough.’
“Well, we drove ten miles, and come to a gate, and ‘twouldn’t do for them to go through, and so there we parted; and they told me to die afore I got catched,—and if I did, not to bring ’em out. I told them I’d die five times over afore I’d fetch ’em out; and so ‘Lecta took me by the hand and kissed me on the cheek, and I kissed her on the hand, for I thought her face warn’t no place for me: and then she squeezes my hand, and says, ‘God bless you, Peter;’ and Polly did the same, and there was some cryin’ on both sides. So I helped ’em off, and as we parted, each one gin me a handsome half-dollar, and I kept one on ’em a good many years; and, finally, I gin it to my sweet-heart in Santa Cruz, and I guess she’s got it yit.
“I starts on my journey with a heavy heart, sobbin’ and cryin’, for I begun to cry as soon as I got out of the wagon. I guess I cried all of three hours afore mornin’, and I felt so distressedly ’bout leavin’ the gals I almost wished myself back; but I’d launched out, and I warn’t agoin’ back alive.
“I travelled till daylight, and then, to be undiscovered, I took to the woods, and stayed there all day, and eat the food I took along in the knapsack; and a dreadful thunder-storm come, and I crawled, feet first, into a fell holler old tree, and pulled in my knapsack for a pillar, and had a good sleep; only a part of the time I cried, and when I come out I was very dry, and I lays down and drinks a bellyful of water out of a place made by a crutter’s track, and filled by the rain, and on I went till I come to Skaneatales Bridge; and ’twas now dark, and when I got into the middle, a man comes up and says ‘good evenin’, Peter.’ Well, I stood and says nothin’, only I expected my doom was sealed. He says ‘you needn’t be scart, Peter,’ and come to, it was a black man I’d known, and he takes me into his house in the back room, and gin me a good meal. You see I’d seen him a good many times agoin’ by there with a team. Arter supper his wife gin me a pair of stockins and half a dollar, and he gin me half a loaf of wheat bread, and a hunk of biled bacon, and a silver dollar, and off I started, with a kind of a light heart. I travels all that night till daylight, and grew tired and sleepy; and on the right side of the road I see a barn, and so I goes in and lies down on the hay, and I’d no sooner struck the mow than I fell asleep. When I woke up the sun was up three hours, and some men were goin’ into the field with a team, and that ‘woke me up. I looks for a chance to clear, and I sees a piece of woods off about half a mile, and I gits off; so the barn hid me from ’em, and I lays my course for these woods, and jist by ’em was a large piece of wheat, and I gits in and was so hid I stays there all day; and a part of the time I cried, and sat down, and stood up, and whistled, and all that, and it come night, I started out, and travelled till about midnight, and had a plenty to eat yit.
“Well, the moon shone bright, and I was travellin’ on between two high hills, and the fust thing I hears was the screech of a pain’ter; and if you’d been there, I guess you’d thought the black boy had turned white. Well, on the other hill was an answer to this one; and I travelled on, and every now and then, I heard one holler and t’other answer, but I kept on the move; and when the moon come out from a cloud it struck on the hill, and I see one on ’em, and bim’bye, both on ’em got together, and sich a time I never see atwixt two live things. Their screeches fairly went through me. Not long arter I come up to a house, and bein’ very dry, I turned into the gate to git a drink of water, and I drawed up some, and a big black dog come plungin’ out, and in a minute a light was struck up, and out come a man, and hollered to his dog to ‘git out;’ and he says to me, ‘Good night, Sir; you travel late.’ ‘Yis, Sir.’ ‘What’s the reason?’ And I had a lie all ready, cut and dried. ‘My mother lies at the pint of death in the city of New York, and I’m a hastenin’ down to see her, to git there if I can afore she dies.’ He rather insisted on my comin’ in, but I declined, and bid him a good night, and passed on my way. I left the road for fear this man might think I was a run-away, and so pursue me; and on I went to the woods. I hadn’t got fur afore I hears a horse’s hoofs clatterin’ along the road; and thinks, says I, ‘I’m ahead of you, now, my sweet feller—I’m in the bush.’ And so I put on; and by daylight I thought I was fur enough off, and I could travel a heap faster in the road, so I put for the road; and nothin’ troubled me till ten o’clock. And as I come along to an old loghouse, a little gal come out, and hollers, ‘Run, nigger, run, they’re arter ye; you’re a run-away, I know.’ I tell you it struck me with surprise, to think how she knew I was a run-away. I says nothin’, but she says the same thing agin’; and on I goes till I come to a turn in the road where I was hid, and I patted the sand nicely for a spell I tell ye. When I got along a while, I run into a bunch of white pines; and as I slipped along, I come across one of these ’ere black gentlemen with a white ring round his neck, and he riz up and seemed detarmined to have a battle with me. Well, I closed in with him, and dispersed him quick, with a club; and in about four rods I met another, and I dispersed him in short order; and got out into the road, and travelled till night; and come to a gate, and axed the man if I might stay with him. An Ingen man kept the gate, and a kind of a tavern, tu; and he says, ‘yis;’ and I stayed, and was treated well, and not a question axed. Well, I axed him how fur ’twas to a village, and he says, ‘six miles to Oneida village,’ and says he, ‘what be you, an Ingen, or a nigger?’ I says, ‘I guess I’m a kind of a mix:’ and he put his hand on to my head, and says, ‘well, I guess you’ve got some nigger blood in ye, I guess I shan’t charge you but half price,’ and so off I starts. Well, soon I come to a parcel of blackberry bushes, and out come an Ingen squaw, and says, ‘sago;’ and I answers, ‘sagole,’ that’s a kind of a ‘how de.’ And all along in the bushes was young Ingens, as thick as toads arter a shower, and I was so scart to think what I’d meet next, my hair fairly riz on end; and in a minute, right afore me I see a comin’ about twenty big, trim, strappin’ Ingens, with their rifles, and tomahawks, and scalpin’ knives, and then I wished I was back in master’s old kitchen, for I thought they was arter me; and I put out and run, and a tall Ingen arter me to scare me, and I run my prettiest for about fifty rods, and then I stubbled my toe agin a stone, and fell my length, heels over head. But, I up and started agin, and then the Ingen stopped, and oh! sich a yelp as he gin, and all on ’em answered him, and off he went and left me, and that made me feel better than bein’ in old master’s kitchen.
“I travels on and comes to a tavern, and got some breakfast of fresh salmon, and had a talk with the landlord’s darter, and she was half Ingen, for her father had married an Ingen woman; and while I was there, up come four big Ingens arter whiskey, and they had no money, and so they left a bunch of skins in pawn till they come back. So I paid him thirty-seven and a half cents and come on. The next time I stopped at a cake and beer shop, and I told the old woman sich a pitiful story, that she gin me all I’d bought and a card of gingerbread to boot, and I come on rejoicin’. They was Yankee folks, and, say what you will, the Yankee folks are fine fellers where ever you meet ’em.
“Next place I passed was Utica, which was quite a thrifty little place; but I didn’t stop there; and on a little I got a ride with a teamster down twenty miles, to a place about six miles west of Little Falls, and there I put up with a man, and he hired me to help him work nine days and a half, and gin me a dollar a day, and paid me the silver, and he owned a black boy by the name of Toney. We called him Tone, and they did abuse him bad enough, poor feller! he was all scars from head to foot, and I slept with him, and he showed me where they’d cut him to pieces with a cat-o’-nine-tails. And it did seem, to look at him, as though he must have been cut up into mince meat, almost!! ☜ !!
“Well, I left him, and got down about two miles on my journey, and there lay a Durham boat, aground in the Mohawk River; and a man aboard hollered to me, to come down, and he axed me if I didn’t want to work my passage down to Snackady. I says, ‘yis, if you’ll pay me for it!!’ You see I felt very independent jist now, for I begun to feel my oats a leetle; and so he agreed to give me twenty shillin’s if I would, and so I agreed tu, and went aboard, and glad enough tu of sich a fat chance of gittin’ along.
“We come to ‘the Falls,’ and they was a great curiosity I tell ye; and we got our boat down ’em, through a canal dug round ’em by five or six locks. Oh! them falls was a fine sight—the water a thunderin’ along all foam. Well, we had good times a goin’ down, and come to Snackady, the man wanted to hire me to go trips with him up and down from Utica, and offered me ten dollars a trip. So we got a load of dry goods and groceries, and goes back for Utica, and gits there Saturday night. The captain of the boat was John Munson, and I made three trips with him, and calculated to have made the fourth, but somethin’ turned up that warn’t so agreeable. I stayed there Sunday, and Sunday evenin’ about seven o’clock, I goes up on the hill with one of the hands, to see some of our colour, and gits back arter a roustin’ time about ten o’clock, and as soon as I enters the house, Mrs. Munson says, ‘why lord-a-massa Peter, your master has been here arter you, and what shall we do?’ And I was so thunderstruck, I didn’t know what to say, or do. And says she, ‘you must make your escape the best way you can.’