them over the head with a heavy iron key, until the blood ran; or else
whipping them with a cowhide, which she always kept by her side when
sitting in her room. The older servants she would cause to be punished
by having them severely whipped by a man, which she never failed to do for
every trifling fault. I have felt the weight of some of her heaviest keys
on my own head, and for the slightest offences. No slave could possibly
escape being punished--I care not how attentive they might be, nor how
industrious--punished they must be, and punished they certainly were. Mrs.
Helm appeared to be uneasy unless some of the servants were under the
lash. She came into the kitchen one morning and my mother, who was cook,
had just put on the dinner. Mrs. Helm took out her white cambric
handkerchief, and rubbed it on the inside of the pot, and it crocked it!
That was enough to invoke the wrath of my master, who came forth
immediately with his horse-whip, with which he whipped my poor mother
most unmercifully--far more severely than I ever knew him to whip a horse.

I once had the misfortune to break the lock of master's shot gun, and when
it came to his knowledge, he came to me in a towering passion, and charged
me with what he considered the _crime_ of carelessness. I denied it, and
told him I knew nothing about it; but I was so terribly frightened that he
saw I was guilty, and told me so, foaming with rage; and then I confessed
the truth. But oh, there was no escaping the lash. Its recollection
is still bitter, and ever will be. I was commanded to take off my clothes,
which I did, and then master put me on the back of another slave, my
arms hanging down before him and my hands clasped in his, where he was
obliged to hold me with a vise-like grasp. Then master gave me the most
severe flogging that I ever received, and I pray God that I may never
again experience such torture. And yet Capt. Helm was not the worst of
masters.