“How long did you live with your third master?”
“Three years, sar,” replied the slave.
“Why, that makes you thirty-three; I thought you told me you were only twenty-five.”
Aaron now looked first at the planter, then at the trader, and seemed perfectly bewildered. He had forgotten the lesson given him by Pompey, relative to his age; and the planter’s circuitous questions—doubtless to find out the slave’s real age—had thrown the negro off his guard.
“I must see your back, so as to know how much you have been whipped, before I think of buying.”
Pompey, who had been standing by during the examination, thought that his services were now required, and, stepping forth with a degree of officiousness, said to Aaron:—“Don’t you hear de gemman tell you he wants to zamin you? Cum, unharness yo-seff, ole boy, an’ don’t be standin’ dar.”
Aaron was examined, and pronounced “sound”; yet the conflicting statement about his age was not satisfactory.
On the following trip down the river, Walker halted at Vicksburg, with a “prime lot of slaves,” and a circumstance occurred which shows what the slaves in those days would resort to, to save themselves from flogging, while, at the same time, it exhibits the quick wit of the race.
While entertaining some of his purchasers at the hotel, Walker ordered Pompey to hand the wine around to his guests. In doing this, the servant upset a glass of wine upon a gentleman’s lap. For this mishap, the trader determined to have his servant punished. He, therefore, gave Pompey a sealed note, and ordered him to take it to the slave prison. The servant, suspecting that all was not right, hastened to open the note before the wafer had dried; and passing the steamboat landing, he got a sailor to read the note, which proved to be, as Pompey had suspected, an order to have him receive “thirty-nine stripes upon the bare back.”
Walker had given the man a silver dollar, with orders to deliver it, with the note, to the jailor, for it was common in those days for persons who wanted their servants punished and did not wish to do it themselves, to send them to the “slave pen,” and have it done; the price for which was one dollar.