Although I had seen so many marks of cruelty among these people, yet I said to myself, O that these poor people had remained in their old homes a little longer! Surely they can not suffer there like this. A little girl came for me to go to the old blacksmith-shop used as a temporary hospital, as her mother thought her brother was dying, and another brother was very sick. I entered that shop, and listened to the groans of the dying. I repeated to myself, O that they had waited a little longer! Four men and the little son of the distressed mother that sent for me were evidently dying, and four others were sick with pneumonia. The mother of these two sick boys was doing all she could for them all. I gave her ground mustard to make poultices, and ginger for those who had chills, and told her how to use them. I had a few pounds of each, and generally took a little package with me, especially after a storm. This miserable shelter leaked but little, but one side and one end were so open that we could throw a hat through the wall. I saw a pile of irons by the door. Placing my foot on a queer double jointed ring, I said: "I wonder what that queer sort of a ring could have been used for," looking toward the old dilapidated cotton-gin near by. "That's a neck iron," said an old woman standing near me. "A neck-iron! What do you mean?" "Why, it's an iron collar to wear on the neck." "But you are certainly mistaken," said I, picking it up; "you see these joints are riveted with iron as large as my finger, and it could never be taken off over one's head." "But we knows; dat's Uncle Tim's collar. An' he crawled off in dat fence-corner," pointing to the spot, "an' died thar, an' Massa George had his head cut off to get de iron off." "Is it possible for a human being to become so brutal as to cut a man's head off when he is dead?" She looked as if she thought I doubted her word, and said: "It didn't hurt Uncle Tim when he was dead as it did when de iron wore big sores way down to de bone, and da got full o' worms afore he died. His neck an' head all swell up, an' he prayed many, many prayers to God to come and take him out his misery." "How long did he wear it?" "'Bout two years." "Two years! It is impossible for any one to live that length of time with this rough heavy iron." [Illustration: SLAVE IRONS IN POSSESSION OF THE AUTHOR] "We work two seasons, any how, over in dat cotton-fiel'," pointing to the two-hundred-acre cotton-field at our right. I took up another iron, and inquired, "What sort of an iron is this?" "A knee-stiffener, to w'ar on de leg to keep 'em from runnin' off in dat swamp," pointing to the dark swamp bordering Lake Concordia, so fully draped with long Southern moss that in many places in it nothing could be discovered three feet in the thicket. I went to the rear of the shop, with the ring under my shawl. Here stood a dozen or more of old and crippled men and women.