knew him at the house of my old master, it was not as a _master_, but
simply as "Captain Auld," who had married old master's daughter. All my
lessons concerning his{146} temper and disposition, and the best methods
of pleasing him, were yet to be learnt. Slaveholders, however, are not
very ceremonious in approaching a slave; and my ignorance of the new
material in shape of a master was but transient. Nor was my mistress
long in making known her animus. She was not a "Miss Lucretia," traces
of whom I yet remembered, and the more especially, as I saw them
shining in the face of little Amanda, her daughter, now living under a
step-mother's government. I had not forgotten the soft hand, guided by a
tender heart, that bound up with healing balsam the gash made in my head
by Ike, the son of Abel. Thomas and Rowena, I found to be a well-matched
pair. _He_ was stingy, and _she_ was cruel; and--what was quite natural
in such cases--she possessed the ability to make him as cruel as
herself, while she could easily descend to the level of his meanness.
In the house of Master Thomas, I was made--for the first time in seven
years to feel the pinchings of hunger, and this was not very easy to
bear.

For, in all the changes of Master Hugh's family, there was no change in
the bountifulness with which they supplied me with food. Not to give a
slave enough to eat, is meanness intensified, and it is so recognized
among slaveholders generally, in Maryland. 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 I came from--the general practice accords
with this theory. Lloyd's plantation was an exception, as was, also, the
house of Master Thomas Auld.

All know the lightness of Indian corn-meal, as an article of food, and
can easily judge from the following facts whether the statements I have
made of the stinginess of Master Thomas, are borne out. There were four
slaves of us in the kitchen, and four whites in the great house Thomas
Auld, Mrs. Auld, Hadaway Auld (brother of Thomas Auld) and little
Amanda. The names of the slaves in the kitchen, were Eliza, my sister;
Priscilla, my aunt; Henny, my cousin; and myself. There were eight
persons{147} in the family. There was, each week, one half bushel of
corn-meal brought from the mill; and in the kitchen, corn-meal was
almost our exclusive food, for very little else was allowed us. Out of
this bushel of corn-meal, the fam