und,
instead of going down, on reaching North Point they went up the bay,
in a north-easterly direction. I deemed this knowledge of the utmost
importance. My determination to run away was again revived. I resolved
to wait only so long as the offering of a favorable opportunity. When
that came, I was determined to be off.

CHAPTER IX

I have now reached a period of my life when I can give dates. I left
Baltimore, and went to live with Master Thomas Auld, at St. Michael's,
in March, 1832. It was now more than seven years since I lived with him
in the family of my old master, on Colonel Lloyd's plantation. We of
course were now almost entire strangers to each other. He was to me a
new master, and I to him a new slave. I was ignorant of his temper and
disposition; he was equally so of mine. A very short time, however,
brought us into full acquaintance with each other. I was made acquainted
with his wife not less than with himself. They were well matched, being
equally mean and cruel. I was now, for the first time during a space of
more than seven years, made to feel the painful gnawings of hunger--a
something which I had not experienced before since I left Colonel
Lloyd's plantation. It went hard enough with me then, when I could look
back to no period at which I had enjoyed a sufficiency. It was tenfold
harder after living in Master Hugh's family, where I had always had
enough to eat, and of that which was good. I have said Master Thomas was
a mean man. He was so. Not to give a slave enough to eat, is regarded as
the most aggravated development of meanness even among slaveholders. The
rule is, no matter how coarse the food, only let there be enough of it.
This is the theory; and in the part of Maryland from which I came, it is
the general practice,--though there are many exceptions. Master Thomas
gave us enough of neither coarse nor fine food. There were four slaves
of us in the kitchen--my sister Eliza, my aunt Priscilla, Henny, and
myself; and we were allowed less than a half of a bushel of corn-meal
per week, and very little else, either in the shape of meat or
vegetables. It was not enough for us to subsist upon. We were therefore
reduced to the wretched necessity of living at the expense of our
neighbors. This we did by begging and stealing, whichever came handy in
the time of need, the one being considered as legitimate as the other.
A great many times have we poor creatures been nearly perishing
with hunger,