many minutes longer; at this master was silent, and a few minutes Reuben
was dead. Poor Aunt Dinah came in out of the kitchen and wept fit to break
her poor heart. She had four sons and three daughters, and they all joined
in mournful lamentation.

When I was sixteen I was very fond of dancing, and was invited privately
to a negro shindy or dance, about twelve miles from home, and for this
purpose I got Aunt Dinah to starch the collars for my two linen shirts,
which were the first standing collars I had ever worn in my life; I had a
good pair of trousers, and a jacket, but no necktie, nor no pocket
handkerchief, so I stole aunt Dinah's checked apron, and tore it in
two--one part for a necktie, the other for a pocket handkerchief. I had
twenty-four cents, or pennies which I divided equally with fifty large
brass buttons in my right and left pockets. Now, thought I to myself, when
I get on the floor and begin to dance--oh! how the niggers will stare to
hear the money jingle. I was combing my hair to get the knots out of it: I
then went and looked in an old piece of broken looking-glass, and I
thought, without joking, that I was the best looking negro that I had ever
seen in my life. About ten o'clock I stole out to the stable when all was
still; and while I was getting on one of my master's horses I said to
myself--Master was in here at six o'clock and saw all these horses clean,
so I must look out and be back time enough to have you clean when he gets
up in the morning. I thought what a dash I should cut among the pretty
yellow and Sambo gals, and I felt quite confident, of course, that I
should have my pick among the best looking ones, for my good clothes, and
my abundance of money, and my own good looks--in fact, I thought no mean
things of my self.

When I arrived at the place where the dance was, it was at an old house in
the woods, which had many years before been a negro meeting-house; there