of anything to eat. The next day I got a letter from the contractor, telling me that my nigger had run away, without any cause. So I rode over to the jail again, and told them to continue the same treatment until the boy got a good deal worse or a good deal better. Well, the rascal kept it up for a week, all the time groaning so, you'd think he couldn't live many hours longer; but, after he had been in seven days, he all of a sudden said he'd got well, and wanted something to eat. As soon as I heard of it, I sent them word to give him a good paddling,[1] and handcuff him, and send him back to the railroad. I had to pay them for taking up a runaway, besides the sheriff's fees, and a week's board of the boy to the county."
But the same gentleman admitted that he had sometimes been mistaken, and had made men go to work when they afterwards proved to be really ill; therefore, when one of his people told him he was not able to work, he usually thought, "Very likely he'll be all the better for a day's rest, whether he's really ill or not," and would let him off without being particular in his examination. Lately he had been getting a new overseer, and when he was engaging him, he told him that this was his way. The overseer replied, "It's my way, too, now; it didn't use to be, but I had a lesson. There was a nigger one day at Mr. 's who was sulky and complaining; he said he couldn't work. I looked at his tongue, and it was right clean, and I thought it was nothing but damned sulkiness, so I paddled him, and made him go to work; but, two days after, he was under ground. He was a good eight hundred dollar nigger, and it was a lesson to me about taming possums, that I ain't agoing to forget in a hurry."
The liability of women, especially, to disorders and irregularities which cannot be detected by exterior symptoms, but
- ↑ Not something to eat but punishment with an instrument like a ferule.
