children, and I fell to young master; his name was James Grandy. I was
then about eight years old. When I became old enough to be taken away
from my mother and put to field work, I was hired out for the year, by
auction, at the court house, every January: this is the common
practice with respect to slaves belonging to persons who are under
age. This continued till my master and myself were twenty-one years
old.

The first who hired me was Mr. Kemp, who used me pretty well; he gave
me plenty to eat, and sufficient clothing.

The next was old Jemmy Coates, a severe man. Because I could not learn
his way of hilling corn, he flogged me naked with a severe whip, made
of a very tough sapling; this lapped round me at each stroke; the
point of it at last entered my belly and broke off, leaving an inch
and a half outside. I was not aware of it until, on going to work
again, it hurt my inside very much, when, on looking down, I saw it
sticking out of my body. I pulled it out, and the blood spouted after
it. The wound festered, and discharged very much at the time, and hurt
me for years after.

In being hired out, sometimes the slave gets a good home, and
sometimes a bad one: when he gets a good one, he dreads to see January
come; when he has a bad one, the year seems five times as long as it
is.

I was next with Mr. Enoch Sawyer, of Camden county. My business was to
keep ferry, and do other odd work. It was cruel living. We had not
near enough of either victuals or clothes. I was half starved for half
my time. I have often ground the husks of Indian corn over again in a
hand-mill, for the chance of getting something to eat out of it which
the former grinding had left. In severe frosts, I was compelled to go
into the fields and woods to work, with my naked feet cracked and
bleeding from extreme cold: to warm them, I used to rouse an ox or
hog, and stand on the place where it had lain. I was at that place
three years, and very long years they seemed to me. The trick by which
he kept me so long was this: the court house was but a mile off. At
hiring day, he prevented me from going till he went himself and bid
for me. On the last occasion, he was detained for a little while by
other business; so I ran as quickly as I could, and got hired before
he came up.

Mr. George Furley was my next master; he employed me as a car-boy in
the Dismal Swamp; I had to drive lumber, &c. I had plenty to eat and
plenty of clothes. I was so overj