Under that great tree, in the edge of yonder cornfield, his mother writhed under the lash, for complaining that her task was too heavy; and obliged to witness the rising of the great welts upon her naked back, his father had snatched the instrument of torture from the hand that wielded it, and on an attempt being made to dispossess him of it, had dealt the overseer a smart blow across the back of his hand. Then had followed a gathering of “the hands” from that and neighboring plantations, to witness the “maintenance of discipline,” and Elly’s father—a valuable specimen of plantation stock—was made, under the cat o’ nine tails, a physical wreck. Beside that old decaying cotton-house, now scarcely visible, his oldest sister was once hung up by her hands and severely whipped, because she preferred field labor by the side of the father of her child, who was called her husband, to what was called an easier life—in “the big house after Missus got sick, and was agwoine’ to die.” Next, the train rattled over a long stretch of spiling though a cane-brake, where were familiar trees, under which Elly had paused for breath, and standing upon their knotted roots, listened to the baying of pursuing blood-hounds; and so vivid was his recollection of this, his first attempt to escape from slavery, that the sick, cringing, trembling feeling returned as he observed the bent canes leaning away from the half-submerged ties of the railroad track; an involuntarily moving of his feet upon the car floor, as if again seeking a footing upon their bent stalks, a semiconsciousness of present circumstances was restored, through which his mind leaped over the terrible capture and chastisement, and he seemed again to hear the sounds of the “Yankee Camp,” and felt the joy of his happy entrance there, a “Contraband of war,” but a chattel slave no longer. Then came a realization of the inestimable service the “Yankee Governess” had rendered him when she stealthily taught him to read, and spurred his young master’s lazy efforts, by contrasting his acquirements with those of the listening slave boy. Through that poor beginning, made in weakness and danger on the part of both pupil and teacher, when it was a crime, punishable by imprisonment in the State’s Prison, he had made his way to positions of honor and emolument.