alsely claimed for it by its
supporters, than in any of the more Southern States.'

Just then Master Winters returned to the room, and on seeing him Tom's
excitement apparently increased. He gesticulated violently, and
delivered himself in short, emphatic sentences, interlarded, I am sorry
to say, with rather too many of those objectionable expletives that an
ex-slave-overseer may be supposed to be addicted to. Swearing is a
vulgar practice, and one for which there is no sort of justification;
and yet, I must confess, it is calculated to give a certain savage
energy to one's language when he has not a very copious vocabulary of
choicer epithets and synonyms at command. Of course I can not do justice
to Tom's colloquial style in print, but he proceeded:

'I was, as I told you before, well acquainted with the slave-dealer,
Meminger, at Lexington. We boarded together at M'Gowan's; and after my
wife died I went about with him considerable.

'One day, in the winter before I left there to go to Mississippi, he and
I were coming over from Danville. It was the coldest day I ever knew in
Kentucky. Kentucky has a mild climate, and the winters are short and not
very severe. Still the weather is very variable, and there will
occasionally occur a day in January which is as cold as any where else,
and which is felt all the more for being an exception.

'This day, when Meminger and I were coming over from Danville, was one
of those days. It was cold; I tell you, it was almighty cold! We were on
horseback, and were bundled up with any amount of clothes and mufflers,
and had leggins on--as they always wear them in Kentucky when they go on
horseback. We had got--you know where the turnpike forks south of the
Kentucky river. One branch runs this way, to Danville; the other, that
way to Lancaster and Stanford. Right here in the forks--that is the
identical spot where Camp 'Dick Robinson' now is; but there was no camp
there then, by a long shot. Then as you approach the river, you come
down a long hill, a mile long, at least, you know.

'Well, we had got nearly to the bottom of this hill, and were coming
along at a pretty good jog, when we heard some body hallooing after us,
and we held up. Looking around, we saw a man running down from the house
standing upon the side-hill, a little away from the road. May be you
remember the house up there? Well, he was hallooing like a loon, and we
waited till he came up. Soon as he got near enough t