ming, they would do something in keeping with the character I had
given them; but no, they had already had their spree, and they could
afford now to be extra good, readily obeying my orders, and seeming to
understand them quite as well as I did myself. On reaching the woods, my
tormentor--who seemed all the way to be remarking upon the good
behavior of his oxen--came up to me, and ordered me to stop the cart,
accompanying the same with the threat that he would now teach me how
to break gates, and idle away my time, when he sent me to the woods.
Suiting the action to the word, Covey paced off, in his own wiry
fashion, to a large, black gum tree, the young shoots of which are
generally used for ox _goads_, they being exceedingly tough. Three of
these _goads_, from four to six feet long, he cut off, and trimmed
up, with his large jack-knife. This done, he ordered me to take off my
clothes. To this unreasonable order I made no reply, but sternly refused
to take off my clothing. "If you will beat me," thought I, "you shall do
so over my clothes." After many threats, which made no impression on me,
he rushed at me with something of the savage fierceness of a wolf, tore
off the few and thinly worn clothes I had on, and proceeded to wear out,
on my back, the heavy goads which he had cut from the gum tree. This
flogging was the first of a series of floggings; and though very severe,
it was less so than many which came after it, and these, for offenses
far lighter than the gate breaking.

I remained with Mr. Covey one year (I cannot say I _lived_ with him) and
during the first six months that I was there, I was whipped, either with
sticks or cowskins, every week. Aching bones and a sore back were my
constant companions. Frequent as the lash was used, Mr. Covey thought
less of it, as a means of breaking down my spirit, than that of hard
and long continued labor. He worked me steadily, up to the point of
my powers of endurance. From the dawn of day in the morning, till the
darkness{167} was complete in the evening, I was kept at hard work, in
the field or the woods. At certain seasons of the year, we were all kept
in the field till eleven and twelve o'clock at night. At these times,
Covey would attend us in the field, and urge us on with words or blows,
as it seemed best to him. He had, in his life, been an overseer, and he
well understood the business of slave driving. There was no deceiving
him. He knew just what a man or boy coul