will now relate the abuses which occasioned me to fly.

Three or four of our farm hands had their wives and families on other
plantations. In such cases, it is the custom in Maryland to allow the men
to go on Saturday evening to see their families, stay over the Sabbath,
and return on Monday morning, not later than "half-an-hour by sun." To
overstay their time is a grave fault, for which, especially at busy
seasons, they are punished.

One Monday morning, two of these men had not been so fortunate as to get
home at the required time: one of them was an uncle of mine. Besides
these, two young men who had no families, and for whom no such provision
of time was made, having gone somewhere to spend the Sabbath, were absent.
My master was greatly irritated, and had resolved to have, as he said, "a
general whipping-match among them."

Preparatory to this, he had a rope in his pocket, and a cowhide in his
hand, walking about the premises, and speaking to every one he met in a
very insolent manner, and finding fault with some without just cause. My
father, among other numerous and responsible duties, discharged that of
shepherd to a large and valuable flock of Merino sheep. This morning he
was engaged in the tenderest of a shepherd's duties;--a little lamb, not
able to go alone, lost its mother; he was feeding it by hand. He had been
keeping it in the house for several days. As he stooped over it in the
yard, with a vessel of new milk he had obtained, with which to feed it, my
master came along, and without the least provocation, began by asking,
"Bazil, have you fed the flock?"

"Yes, sir."