ter to their master. They
simply had to make it last them until dinner. Smiling Mr. Griffin
remarked, "It wouldn't be long before you would hear the "geeing and
hawing" coming from the fields, the squealing of pigs and the barking of
dogs--all sounds mingling together."

Every one had a certain amount of work to complete before the day ended;
and each person worked in feverish haste to get it done and avoid the
whipping which they knew was in store for them, should they fail. During
the day Mr. Griffin's mother worked in the field, hoeing and plowing. At
night she, as well as other women, had to spin thread into cloth until
bed time. Each woman had to complete four cuts or be punished the next
morning. "If it began raining while we worked in the fields, the
overseer would tell everyone to put up their horses and to shelling corn
in the cribs," remarked Mr. Griffin.

"Mike Griffin was the meanest man I've ever known," he continued. "He
would sit down with nothing else to do, think of some man, send for him
and for no reason at all, give him a good beating. He kept a long
cowhide, which was almost an inch thick and with this he would almost
beat folks to death. First you had to remove your clothing so that
whipping would not wear them out. One day he beat a woman named Hannah
so badly that she died the same night. Before daybreak he had carried
the baby off and buried it. We never knew the burial place." Overseers
too, were very mean, particularly those on the Griffin plantation. They
followed the example of the man who hired them and as a result this
plantation was known far and wide for its cruelty, fear and terror. [HW
original text "cruelty, fear and terror" is stricken out.] Many slaves
would have attempted to run away but for fear of the pack of blood
hounds kept for the purpose of tracking run away slaves.

"Patter-rollers" were busy, too, looking up slaves and whipping them for
the flimsiest of excuses. Slaves often outran them to the woods and
managed to return to their plantations unobserved. If a pass had a
certain hour marked in it, for the slave's return, and he failed to
return at the designated houses, this was an offense for which they were
punished by the "patter-rollers." "Yes," remarked Mr. Griffin, "We were
not even allowed to quarrel among ourselves. Our master would quickly
tell us, 'I am the one to fight, not you.'" When a slave visited his
relatives on another plantation the master would send alo