s, it is no
consideration that tools are worn out, mules are destroyed, or the
slaves die; more can be bought for next year, and the slaveholder says
it pays to force a crop, though it be at the expense of life among the
hands.

At noon, the dinner is brought to each gang in a cart. The hoers stop
work only long enough to eat their poor fare standing,--and poor fare
indeed it is. The corn that is made into bread is so filled with husks
and ground so poorly that it is scarcely better than the fodder given to
the cattle; and the bacon, if they have any, is badly cured and cooked.
But they must eat that or starve; there is no chance of getting any
thing better. The ploughmen take their dinners in the sheds where the
mules are allowed to rest; and since two hours is usually given these
animals, for rest and foddering, they, of course, must take the same.

At sunset they leave off work, and, tired and hungry, they have to
prepare their own supper; and after hastily eating it, at nine o'clock
the bell is rung for them to go to bed. Sundays they are not usually
required to work, and some planters give their slaves a portion of
Saturday, in the more leisure season; and this intermission of field
labor is all the opportunity they have to wash and mend their clothes,
or for any enjoyment. What a sorry life! sixteen hours out of the
twenty-four, with a hoe in the hand, or a heavy cotton sack or basket
tied about the neck, toiling on under the curses and lash of the driver
and the overseer.

Tidy dreaded it. Brought up as she had been, accustomed to comparatively
neat clothing, good food, cheerful associates, and light work, how could
she live here? She felt that she could not long endure it. Her strength
would fail, her task be unfinished, then she must be punished, and
before long, through hard fare, unwearied toil, and ill usage, she felt
that she should die. But there was no help. Once she had ventured to
send an entreaty to her master to take her back to house service. But he
was hardhearted and unrelenting, and declared with an oath that made her
ears tingle that she should never leave the cotton-field till she died,
and there was no power in heaven or earth that could make him change
his determination. So she hopelessly plodded on, day after day, scorched
beneath the hot sun, and drenched with the pouring rain, weak, faint,
and thirsty, trembling before the coarse shouts, and shrinking from the
tormenting lash of the piti