o my condition;
but _thinking_ was all I could do. Like a fish in a net, allowed to play
for a time, I was now drawn rapidly to the shore, secured at all points.
"I am," thought I, "but the sport of a power which makes no account,
either of my welfare or of my happiness. By a law which I can clearly
comprehend, but cannot evade nor resist, I am ruthlessly snatched from
the hearth of a fond grandmother, and hurried away to the home of a
mysterious 'old master;' again I am removed from there, to a master in
Baltimore; thence am I snatched away to the Eastern Shore, to be valued
with the beasts of the field, and, with them, divided and set apart for
a possessor; then I am sent back to Baltimore; and by the time I have
formed new attachments, and have begun to hope that no more rude shocks
shall touch me, a difference arises between brothers, and I am again
broken up, and sent to St. Michael's; and now, from the latter place,
I am footing my way to the home of a new master, where, I am given to
understand, that, like a wild young working animal, I am to be broken to
the yoke of a bitter and life-long bondage."

With thoughts and reflections like these, I came in sight of a small
wood-colored building, about a mile from the main road, which, from the
description I had received, at starting, I easily recognized as my new
home. The Chesapeake bay--upon the jutting banks of which the little
wood-colored house was standing--white with foam, raised by the heavy
north-west wind; Poplar Island, covered with a thick, black pine forest,
standing out amid this half ocean; and Kent Point, stretching its sandy,
desert-like shores out into the foam-cested bay--were all in{161} sight,
and deepened the wild and desolate aspect of my new home.

The good clothes I had brought with me from Baltimore were now worn
thin, and had not been replaced; for Master Thomas was as little careful
to provide us against cold, as against hunger. Met here by a north wind,
sweeping through an open space of forty miles, I was glad to make any
port; and, therefore, I speedily pressed on to the little wood-colored
house. The family consisted of Mr. and Mrs. Covey; Miss Kemp (a
broken-backed woman) a sister of Mrs. Covey; William Hughes, cousin to
Edward Covey; Caroline, the cook; Bill Smith, a hired man; and myself.
Bill Smith, Bill Hughes, and myself, were the working force of the farm,
which consisted of three or four hundred acres. I was now, for the first
t