the
house, when I was stopped by Betty, head-man Frank's wife, who came with a
petition that she might be baptised. As usual with all requests involving
anything more than an immediate physical indulgence, I promised to refer
the matter to Mr. ----, but expressed some surprise that Betty, now by no
means a young woman, should have postponed a ceremony which the religious
among the slaves are apt to attach much importance to. She told me she
had more than once applied for this permission to Massa K---- (the former
overseer), but had never been able to obtain it, but that now she thought
she would ask 'de missis.'[2]

[Footnote 2: Of this woman's life on the plantation, I subsequently
learned the following circumstances:--She was the wife of head-man Frank,
the most intelligent and trustworthy of Mr. ----'s slaves; the head
driver--second in command to the overseer, and indeed second to none
during the pestilential season, when the rice swamps cannot with impunity
be inhabited by any white man, and when, therefore, the whole force
employed in its cultivation on the island remains entirely under his
authority and control. His wife--a tidy, trim, intelligent woman, with a
pretty figure, but a decidedly negro face--was taken from him by the
overseer left in charge of the plantation by the Messrs. ----, the
all-efficient and all-satisfactory Mr. K----, and she had a son by him,
whose straight features and diluted colour, no less than his troublesome,
discontented and insubmissive disposition, bear witness to his Yankee
descent. I do not know how long Mr. K----'s occupation of Frank's wife
continued, or how the latter endured the wrong done to him. When I visited
the island, Betty was again living with her husband--a grave, sad,
thoughtful-looking man, whose admirable moral and mental qualities were
extolled to me by no worse a judge of such matters than Mr. K---- himself,
during the few days he spent with Mr. ----, while we were on the
plantation. This outrage upon this man's rights was perfectly notorious
among all the slaves; and his hopeful offspring, Renty, alluding very
unmistakably to his superior birth on one occasion when he applied for
permission to have a gun, observed that, though the people in general on
the plantation were not allowed firearms, he thought he might, _on
account of his colour_, and added that he thought Mr. K---- might have
left him his. This precious sample of the mode in which the vices of the
wh