e
parents according to their ability.

With this corn flour, which the slaves called mush, each child used to
get a gill of sour milk brought daily from the plantation in a large
wooden pail on the head of a boy or man. We children used to like the
sour milk, or hard clabber as it was called by the slaves; but that
seldom changed diet, namely the mush, was hated worse than medicine. Our
hatred was increased against the mush from the fact that they used to
give us molasses to eat with it, instead of clabber. The hateful mixture
made us anxious for Sundays to come, when our mothers, fathers, sisters
and brothers would bring something from the plantation, which, however
poor, we considered very nice, compared with what we had during the week
days. Among the many desirable things our parents brought us the most
delightful was cow pease, rice, and a piece of bacon, cooked together;
the mixture was called by the slaves "hopping John."

THE STORY OF GILBERT.

A few large boys were sent yearly to the sand-hill among the smaller
ones, as guides. At the time to which I am referring there was one by
the name of Gilbert, who used to go around with the smaller boys in the
woods to gather bushes and sticks for the old women to cook our food
with.

Gilbert was a cruel boy. He used to strip his little fellow negroes
while in the woods, and whip them two or three times a week, so that
their backs were all scarred, and threatened them with severer
punishment if they told; this state of things had been going on for
quite a while. As I was a favorite with Gilbert, I always had managed to
escape a whipping, with the promise of keeping the secret of the
punishment of the rest, which I did, not so much that I was afraid of
Gilbert, as because I always was inclined to mind my own business. But
finally, one day, Gilbert said to me, "Jake," as he used to call me,
"you am a good boy, but I'm gwine to wip you some to-day, as I wip dem
toder boys." Of course I was required to strip off my only garment,
which was an Osnaburg linen shirt, worn by both sexes of the negro
children in the summer. As I stood trembling before my merciless
superior, who had a switch in his hand, thousands of thoughts went
through my little mind as to how to get rid of the whipping. I finally
fell upon a plan which I hoped would save me from a punishment that was
near at hand. There were some carpenters in the woods, some distance
from us, hewing timber; they were fa