ing women,
twenty men, and fifteen children under five years. The sixty adults are
all prime hands. They are given daily tasks, which they cannot possibly
do in less than fifteen hours, leaving them only nine hours out of the
twenty-four for eating, sleeping, feeding their children, and the waking
rest necessary to working people. He never whips them on a week day,
because it wastes working time, but makes Sunday a general flogging
season. He has two women where he has one man, and each woman is
expected to bear a child a year. If she doesn't, she is sold. They are
made to work in the field till the labor pains are on them; and they are
allowed only two weeks' rest after confinement. Three of them have borne
children in the woods this season. He keeps only one nurse for the
fifteen children, and as soon as each child is five years old--the age
at which it can be legally sold away from its mother--it is disposed of
to the traders. In addition, three of these women are his own mistresses
and they are expected to have children as fast as the others. He serves
their children like the rest; that is, rears them to the age of five,
and then sells them as he would so many hogs.'

'My God!' I exclaimed, 'he's a monster.'

'There are different opinions about that. Dawsey passes for a jovial
good fellow; keeps open house for his friends; spends money freely at
the elections, and two years ago 'got religion' at a camp meeting. He
merely regards his slaves as chattels, and manages his plantation in
perhaps the only way that is profitable in an old section of country
like this.'

'And how is it with you? How do you manage?' I asked.

'Leff _me_ tell, master Robert,' said the black, smiling. 'I knows all
de 'ticulars 'bout dat.'

'Well, go on,' said Preston, laughing, 'but don't be too hard on _me_.'

'We hab,' continued the black, 'countin' me in, a hundred an' fifty-one
darkies, all in fam'lies--faders, mudders, children, and some on 'em
gran'faders and gran'mudders,'most all born on de plantation, an' some
on 'em livin' on it fur forty, fifty, sixty, an' seventy yar. Out ob
dese, we hab only forty-two full hands, 'case some ob de wimmin dat come
in de ages fur full wuck am sickly, puny tings, only fit fur house wuck
or nussin'. From de whole I gits equal to fifty-four full hands.
'Cordin' to master Robert's direction, I gib 'em easy ten-hour tasks;
but suffin' or anoder turn up 'most ebery day, so dat 'bout half on 'em
don't