Читать книгу Chains and Freedom: or, The Life and Adventures of Peter Wheeler, a Colored Man Yet Living онлайн

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“Well, we started for York State, and one night we stayed in Newark, and I thought ’twas a dreadful handsome place; for you could see New York and Brooklyn from there, and the waters round New York, that’s the handsomest waters I ever see, and I have seen hundreds of harbors.

“Next day we got to a place called Long Cummin, and put up at a Mr. Starling’s, and he kept a store and tavern, and they was fine folks. In the evenin’ Mr. Starling comes into the kitchen where I was a sittin’ by the fire, holdin’ one of the children in my lap, and he slaps me on the shoulder, and master comes in too, and says he, ‘Morehouse, what will you take for that boy, cash down? I want him for the store and tavern, and run arrants, &c.’ Master says, ‘I don’t want to sell him.’—’Well,’ says Starling, ‘I’ll give you $200 cash in hand.’ Master says, ‘I wouldn’t take 500 silver dollars for that boy, for I mean to have the workin’ of that nigger myself.’ ‘Well,’ says Starling, ‘you’d better take that, or you won’t git anything, for he’ll be running off bi’m’bye.’ And I tell ye, I begun to think ’bout it myself, about that time. Well, I went to bed, and thought about it, and wanted to stay with Starling; and next mornin’ Mrs. Starling comes to master, and says she, ‘I guess you’d better sell that boy to my husband, for he’s jist the boy we want to git:’ and says I, ‘Master, I wants to stay here, and I wish you’d sell me to these ’ere folks;’—and with that he up and kicked me, and says he, ‘If I hear any more of that from you, I’ll tie ye up, and tan your black hide; and now go, and up with the teams.’ Well, when we got all ready to start, I wanted to stay, and I boohooed and boohooed; and Mr. Starling says to master, ‘I want your boy to come in the store a minute;’ and I went in, and he out with a bag of Bungtown coppers, and gin me a hull pocket full, and says he, ‘Peter, I wish you could live with me, but you can’t; and you must be a good boy, and when you git to be a man you’ll see better times, I hope;’ and I cried, and took on dreadfully, and bellowed jist like a bull; for you know, when a body’s grieved, it makes a body feel a good deal worse to have a body pity ’em. I see there was no hope, and I mounted the box, and took the lines, and driv off; but I felt as bad as though I had been goin’ to my funeral. Oh! it seemed to me they was all happy there, and they was so kind to me, and they seemed to be so good, it almost broke my heart: I had every thing to eat—broiled shad, cake, apple pie, (I used to be a great hand for apple pie,) rice pudden’ and raisins in it, beefsteak, and all that; and the children kept a runnin’ round the table, and sayin’, ‘Peter must have this, and Peter must have that;’ and I kept a thinkin’ as I drove on, how they all kept flocking round me when we come away, and I cried ’bout it two or three days, and every time master come up, he’d give me a lick over my ears, ‘cause I was a cryin’. If I should die I couldn’t think of the next place where we stayed all night. We travelled thirty miles, and the tavern keeper’s name was Henry Williams. Well, the day arter, we had a very steep hill to go down, and the leaders run on fast, and I couldn’t hold ’em, and when we got to the bottom, master hollered, ‘Stop!’ and up he come, and whipped me dreadfully, and kicked me with a pair of heavy boots so hard in my back, I was so lame I couldn’t hardly walk for three or four days, and everybody asked me what was the matter. The next place we stopped at, the tavern keeper’s folks was old, and real clever; and master telled ’em not to let me have any supper but buttermilk, and that set me to cryin’, and I boohooed a considerable; and the darter says, ‘Come, mother, let’s give Peter a good supper, and his master will pay for it, tu;’ and so they did; and as I was a settin’ by the fire, she axed me, and I telled her all ’bout how I was treated, and says she, ‘Why don’t you run away, Peter? I wouldn’t stay with sich a man: I’d run, if I had to stay in the woods.’ Next mornin’ the old man was mad ’nough when he see the bill for my buttermilk, and swore a good deal ’bout it. Next day we come to the ‘Beach Woods,’ and ’twas the roughest road you ever see, and the wheels would go down in the mud up to the hubs, then up on a log; and he’d make me lift the wheels as hard as I any way could, and he wouldn’t lift a pound, and stood over me with his whip, and sung out, ‘lift, you black devil, lift.’ And I did lift, till I could fairly see stars, and go back and forth from one wagon to t’other, he to whip, and I to lift; and so we kept a tuggin’ through the day till night. That night we stayed to a black man’s tavern; and when we come up, and see ’twas a black man’s house, master was mad ’nough; but he couldn’t git any furder that night, and so he had to be an abolitionist once in his life, any how!!! Well, he didn’t drive that nigger round, I tell ye, he was on tu good footin’: he owned a farm, and fine house, and we had as good fare there as any where on the road.