rl at this, "and SHE
wouldn't a sold me; she said she never would."

"Yes, she would, Miss," replied Mr. Lee; "we don't let her throw
away such a valuable piece of property for nothing, I can tell you. A
thousand dollars in the bank isn't a small thing. It wouldn't find feet
to walk off with very soon, that we know."

"Miss Matilda TOLD me to take my liberty," said Tidy, disconsolately.

"Miss Matilda is a fool, like you. But we shall look out she don't cheat
herself in such a fashion. Now you can have your choice, little one;
you can go home with me, and take a good flogging for an example to the
rest, and stay with us till another buyer comes up,--for Mr. Nicholson
won't take such an uncertain piece of goods as you have showed yourself
to be,--or you can go South. There's a trader here ready to take you
right off. I'll give you till tomorrow morning to make up your mind."

"I'll go South," said the poor girl, the next morning. "I can't bear
ever to see Miss Tilda again." And she settled herself down to her fate.
She knew her life of bondage would be hard there, and she would not
have much chance of getting her freedom. But it was better than the
mortification of going back.

So she was sold to Mr. Pervis, the slave-trader. Mr. Pervis made about
fifty purchases in Baltimore and the vicinity, and then organizing his
gang he started for the South. Oh, what a different journey from that
which Tidy had intended when she left home. A thousand miles South, into
the very heart of slavery's dominions, with a company of coarse, stupid,
filthy, wretched creatures, such as she never would have willingly
associated with at home, so much more delicately had she been
reared. Many of these were field-hands sold to go to the cotton
plantations,--sold for "rascality."

Do you know what that means? You think it is ugliness. But no; it is
a DISEASE. It is a droll sort of malady, to which a learned Louisiana
doctor has given a singular name, which I can't spell, and which you
wouldn't know how to pronounce; but the symptoms I can describe. Where
a slave is attacked with this disease, he acts in a very stupid and
careless manner, and does a great deal of mischief, breaking, abusing,
and wasting every thing he can lay his hands on. He tears his clothes,
throws away food, cuts up plants in the field, breaks his tools, hurts
the horses and cattle, and does a vast amount of injury, and in such
a way that it seems as if it was all done on