This remarkable event happened on a Saturday, at noon. Mr. Mansfield had that day gone away from home and was not to return before night. When he had been home but a short time he came out and met me in the yard, after I had put the horse up that he had been using, and wanted to know what I had done. Before I could think of any serious fault he picked up a stick four feet long and began to fire away at me with all his force, crying out, “What have you been doing?” I told him I had done nothing, and he exclaimed. “You are a liar!” He told me to go to the cellar and he would see. Though a slave, and his property, yet I dared to assert the lion of my manhood that he had aroused in me, and I replied, “I will not do it!” then he renewed the attack with the stick. I caught hold of it to prevent him from using it. He wrung and I twisted; he twisted and I wrung. At last I lost control of my temper and pushed him over a pile of wood that was in the yard. As he fell he cried out for Mary, his wife, to bring him his gun. Before she arrived with the deadly instrument I was over one fence and across the street. As I ascended the second fence to find refuge in the field he aimed his gun, firing three shots at me. The first shot grazed my head, removing a little hair; the second touched my ear, and the third passed through my hat; but they did not stop me from running. On reaching the mulberry thicket, where I thought I was safe, I stopped. I was ignorant of what I had so seriously done to cause all this. I remained here all that night.