l meet some of
the _natives_."

The lady retired to the house, and the Colonel and I were soon ready.
The driver brought the horses to the door, and as we were about to enter
the carriage, I noticed Jim taking his accustomed seat on the box.

"Who's looking after Sam?" asked the Colonel.

"Nobody, Cunnel; de ma'am leff him gwo."

"How dare you disobey me? Didn't I tell you to give him a hundred?"

"Yas, massa, but de ma'am tole me notter."

"Well, another time you mind what _I_ say--do you hear?" said his
master.

"Yas, massa," said the negro, with a broad grin, "I allers do dat."

"You _never_ do it, you d---- nigger; I ought to have flogged you long
ago."

Jim said nothing, but gave a quiet laugh, showing no sort of fear, and
we entered the carriage. I afterward learned from him that he had never
been whipped, and that all the negroes on the plantation obeyed the lady
when, which was seldom, her orders came in conflict with their master's.
They knew if they did not, the Colonel would whip them.

As we rode slowly along the Colonel said to me, "Well, you see that the
best people have to flog niggers sometimes."

"Yes, _I_ should have given that fellow a hundred lashes, at least. I
think the effect on the others would have been bad if Madam P---- had
not had him flogged."

"But she generally goes against it. I don't remember of her having it
done in ten years before. And yet, though I've the worst gang of niggers
in the district, they obey her like so many children."

"Why is that?"

"Well, there's a kind of magnetism about her that makes everybody love
her; and then she tends them in sickness, and is constantly doing little
things for their comfort; _that_ attaches them to her. She is an
extraordinary woman."

"Whose negroes are those, Colonel?" I asked, as, after a while, we
passed a gang of about a dozen, at work near the roadside. Some were
tending a tar-kiln, and some engaged in cutting into fire-wood the pines
which a recent tornado had thrown to the ground.

"They are mine, but they are working now for themselves. I let such as
will, work on Sunday. I furnish the "raw material," and pay them for
what they do, as I would a white man."

"Wouldn't it be better to make them go to hear the old preacher;
couldn't they learn something from him?"

"Not much; Old Pomp never read any thing but the Bible, and he doesn't
understand that; besides, they can't be taught. You can't make 'a
whistle out of