Part 9 (1/2)

CHAPTER XII

After this the fishi+ng season passed off without anything having happened, worthy of being noticed here When we left the fishery and returned to the plantation, which was after the middle of April, the corn and cotton had been planted, and the latter had been replanted I was set to plough, with two hing with these animals, I had much trouble with them at first My master owned more than forty mules, and at this season of the year, they were all at work in the cotton field, used instead of horses for drawing ploughs Soh; but the sether

On the whole, the fishery had been a losing affair withthan I usually did at the plantation, yet I had been co Sunday, for my master; by which I had lost all that I could have earned for my own benefit, had I been on the plantation I had now become so well acquainted with the rules of the plantation and the customs of the country where I lived, that I experienced less distress than I did atto the South

We now received a shad every Sunday evening with our peck of corn The fish were those that I had caught in the spring, and were tolerably preserved In addition to all this, each one of the hands now received a pint of vinegar every week This vinegar was a great coathered lettuce and other salads, froar and bread, furnished ar had been furnished to us by our ard to our health than to our coreatly promoted both

The affairs of the plantation noent on quietly, until after the cotton had been ploughed and hoed the first ti of the cotton crop is not disagreeable labor--no more so than the culture of corn--but ere called upon to perform a kind of labor, than which none can be erous to the health

I have elsewhere informed the reader that my master was a cultivator of rice as well as of cotton Whilst I was at the fishery in the spring, thirty acres of swahed and planted in rice The water had now been turned off the plants, and the field was to be ploughed and hoed When ere taken to the rice field, the weather was very hot, and the ground was yet h the wet soil, and the young rice had to be cleaned of weeds, by the hand, and hilled up with the hoe

It is the coer can work a week in a rice swa sick; and all the new hands, three in number, besides myself, were taken ill within the first five days after we had entered this field The other three were re rather to remain at the quarter, where I was my own master, except that the doctor, who called to see e quantity of blood from my arm, and compelled me to take a dose of some sort of medicine that made me very sick, and caused me to vomit violently This happened on the second day of my illness, and froo to the field again for more than a week Here it is but justice toall the tireat house every day to inquire after ht and cool refreshone to the sick rooenerally prevails a _copperas_ is very poisonous--and perhaps it e quantities--but the circumstance, that it is used in medicine, seems to forbid the notion of its poisonous qualities I believe copperas was ave me Some overseers keep copperas by them, as a medicine, to be administered to the hands whenever they becoh, in so may be very efficacious, it certainly should be administered by a more skillful hand than that of an overseer

It, however, has the effect of deterring the people froer able to work; for it is thenorant, or malicious overseer may, and often do, misapply it, as was the case with our overseer, when he coht of its solution After the restoration of my health, I resumed my accustomed labor in the field, and continued it without intermission, until I left this plantation

We had this year, as a part of our crop, ten acres of indigo This plant is worked nearly after the round, whilst the rice is always cultivated in loaroundits location on dry ground, the culture of indigo is not less unpleasant than that of rice When the rice is ripe, and ready for the sickle, it is no longer disagreeable; but when the indigo is ripe and ready to cut, the troubles attendant upon it have only coo plant bears o, which is common in the woods of Pennsylvania, than to any other herb hich I a and slender, and emits a scent sole steht, hard, and slender, covered with a bark, a little cracked on its surface, of a gray color towards the bottoreen in the middle, reddish at the extremity, and without the appearance of pith in the inside The leaves ranged in pairs around the stalk, are of an oval forreen on the under side The upper parts of the plant are loaded with ses into a pod, enclosing seed

This plant thrives best in a rich, moist soil The seeds are black, very sht drills This crop requires very careful culture, and rass It ripens within less than three ins to flower, the top is cut off, and, as neers appear, the plant is again pruned, until the end of the season

Indigo impoverishes land more rapidly than alreat caution, for fear of shaking off the valuable farina that lies in the leaves When gathered, it is thrown into the steeping vat--a large tub filled ater--here it undergoes a fermentation, which, in twenty-four hours at farthest, is completed A cock is then turned to let the water run into the second tub, called thevat is then cleaned out, that fresh plants may be thrown in, and thus the work is continued without interruption The water in the pounding tub is stirred ooden buckets, with holes in their bottoms, for several days; and, after the sediment contained in the water has settled to the bottom of the tub, the water is let off, and the sedis, and hung up to drain It is afterwards pressed, and laid away to dry in cakes, and then packed in chests for ly unpleasant, both on account of the filth and the stench arising from the decomposition of the plants

In the early part of June, our shad, that each one had been used to receive, ithheld fro but the peck of corn and pint of vinegar This circumstance, in a coht have procured murmurs; but to us it was only announced by the fact of the fish not being distributed to us on Sunday evening

This was considered a fortunate season by our people There had been no exest us for several months; we had escaped entirely upon the occasion of the stolen bags of cotton, though nothing less was to have been looked for, on that occurrence, than a general whipping of the whole gang

There was st us every week; frequently one was flogged every evening, over and above the punishments that followed on each settlement day; but these chastisements, which seldom exceeded ten or twenty lashes, were of little import I was careful, for ulations of the plantation

When I no longer received ain to resort toin the shape of anireens

I had, by this time, become well acquainted with the woods and swa the season when the turtles cas, I availed ht, in the course of the day, by traveling cautiously around the edges of the swae As I caught these creatures, I tied each one with hickory bark, and hung it up to the bough of a tree, so that I could come and carry it home at my leisure

I afterwards carried round, four or five feet deep, and secured the sides by driving sround, quite round the circu out above the ground Into this hole I poured water at pleasure, and kept ain went to the swa their eggs had nearly passed, I had poor success to-day, only taking two turtles of the species called skill-pots--a kind of large terrapin, with a speckled back and red belly

This day, when I was three or four miles from home, in a very solitary part of the swaoners place on the shoulders of their horses At first, the noise of bells of this kind, in a place where they were so unexpected, alarine who or what it was that was causing these bells to ring I was standing near a pond of water, and listening attentively; I thought the bells weretoward round, under cover of a cluster of small bushes that were near me, and lay, not free from disquietude, to await the near approach of these mysterious bells

Sometimes they were quite silent for a le quick, but not loud They were evidently approaching th I heard footsteps distinctly in the leaves, which lay dry upon the ground A feeling of horror seized me at this e of the swaled the living bodies of the two murderers; and my terror was not abated, when, a e tree the for black y, his eyes wild and rolling, and bearing over his head so in the form of an arch, elevated three feet above his hair, beneath the top of which were suspended the bells, three in number, whose sound had first attracted ure, I perceived that it wore a collar of iron about its neck, with a large padlock pendant fro staff, with an iron spear in one end The staff, like every thing else belonging to this strange spectre, was black It slowly approached within ten paces of me, and stood still

The sun was non, and the early twilight produced by the gloom of the heavy forest, in the hten my dismay My heart was in my mouth; all the hairs offro place into the open air in spite of asped for breath

The black apparition moved past me, went to the water and kneeled down