“By being exposed, and abused, and whipped, and almost starved and frozen to death, through the winter, in the spring I was took down with the typhus fever, and lay on a bed of straw, behind the back kitchen door, six months, almost dead; and the doctor come to see me every day, and finally says he to master, ‘if you want that boy to git well, you must give him a decenter place to lay than all that comes tu, for ’tain’t fit for a sick dog.’ “So the gals moved me up stairs, in their arms, and there I lay. They was kind to me durin’ my sickness, but master was very indifferent, and didn’t seem to care whether I lived or died. Well, the gals, one pleasant day in the fall, took me in their arms, and carried me down stairs, and put me in a little baby wagon, and drew me ’bout twenty rods and back, and then took me up stairs agin’, oh! how tired I was, and they did that every day, till I got so I could walk about, and I shall always remember it in ’em, tu. “Well, in ’bout two months arter this, I got so I could work a leetle, and one day Doctor Walker comes in with his bill of seventy odd dollars; and master says he, ‘_I wish the dam_ _nigger had died, and then I shouldn’t had this money to pay._’ Master payed him off arter some _jawing_; but oh! how savage master was to me arter this![6] Footnote 6: One would think that so long a time for reflection, would have softened the poor tyrant’s heart—but it is no easy matter to eradicate the tyranny which is fostered in the bosom of the possessor of irresponsible power. “Well, next Sunday a Methodist preacher comes along, and was agoin’ to preach at Ingen Fields. And so he and his wife come down to dine with us, and we cooked a leg of mutton we had on hand, for dinner, and got it on the table, and all sets down, and master begins to cut it, and come tu, ’twas distressedly tain’ted round the bone, and smelled bad. “Well, master orders it off the table; and I goes and knocks over five chickens, and dresses ’em, and friccazeed them in a hurry, and got ’em on to the table; and I guess we didn’t hinder ’em mor’n half an hour.