Part 3 (1/2)

”Can you eat your allowance?”

”Yes, sar,--when I can get it.”

”Where were you employed in Virginia?”

”I worked de tobacker fiel'.”

”In the tobacco field, eh?”

”Yes, sar.”

”How old did you say you was?”

”Twenty-five, sar, nex' sweet-'tater-diggin' time.”

”I am a cotton-planter, and if I buy you, you will have to work in the cotton-field. My men pick one hundred and fifty pounds a day, and the women one hundred and forty pounds; and those who fail to perform their task receive five stripes for each pound that is wanting. Now, do you think you could keep up with the rest of the hands?”

”I don't know, sar, but I 'specs I'd have to.”

”How long did you live with your third master?”

”Three years, sar.”

”Why, that makes you thirty-three. I thought you told me you were only twenty-five?”

Aaron now looked first at the planter, then at the trader, and seemed perfectly bewildered. He had forgotten the lesson given him by Pompey relative to his age; and the planter's circuitous questions--doubtless to find out the slave's real age--had thrown the negro off his guard.

”I must see you back, so as to know how much you have been whipped, before I think of buying.”

Pompey, who had been standing by during the examination, thought that his services were now required, and, stepping forth with a degree of officiousness, said to Aaron,--

”Don't you hear de gemman tell you he wants to 'zamin you. c.u.m, unharness yo'seff, ole boy, and don't be standin' dar.”

Aaron was soon examined, and p.r.o.nounced ”sound;” yet the conflicting statement about his age was not satisfactory.

Fortunately for Marion, she was spared the pain of undergoing such an examination. Mr. Cardney, a teller in one of the banks, had just been married, and wanted a maid-servant for his wife, and, pa.s.sing through the market in the early part of the day, was pleased with the young slave's appearance, and his dwelling the quadroon found a much better home than often falls to the lot of a slave sold in the New Orleans market.

CHAPTER VII. THE SLAVE-HOLDING PARSON

THE Rev. James Wilson was a native of the State of Connecticut, where he was educated for the ministry in the Methodist persuasion. His father was a strict follower of John Wesley, and spared no pains in his son's education, with the hope that he would one day be as renowned as the leader of his sect. James had scarcely finished his education at New Haven, when he was invited by an uncle, then on a visit to his father, to spend a few months at Natchez in Mississippi. Young Wilson accepted his uncle's invitation, and accompanied him to the South. Few young men, and especially clergymen, going fresh from college to the South, but are looked upon as geniuses in a small way, and who are not invited to all the parties in the neighborhood. Mr. Wilson was not an exception to this rule. The society into which he was thrown, on his arrival at Natchez, was too brilliant for him not to be captivated by it, and, as might have been expected, he succeeded in captivating a plantation with seventy slaves if not the heart of the lady to whom it belonged.

Added to this, he became a popular preacher, and had a large congregation with a snug salary. Like other planters, Mr. Wilson confided the care of his farm to Ned Huckelby, an overseer of high reputation in his way.

The Poplar Farm, as it was called, was situated in a beautiful valley, nine miles from Natchez, and near the Mississippi River. The once unshorn face of nature had given way, and the farm now blossomed with a splendid harvest. The neat cottage stood in a grove, where Lombardy poplars lift their tops almost to prop the skies, where the willow, locust, and horse-chestnut trees spread forth their branches, and flowers never ceased to blossom.

This was the parson's country residence, where the family spent only two months during the year. His town residence was a fine villa, seated on the brow of a hill, at the edge of the city.

It was in the kitchen of this house that Agnes found her new home. Mr.