and I felt more and more provoked at the idea of being thus pursued by a
man to whom I had not done the least injury. I had just began to glance my
eye about for a stone to grasp, when he made a tiger-like leap at me. This
of course brought us to running. At this moment he yelled out "Jake
Shouster!" and at the next moment the door of a small house standing to
the left was opened, and out jumped a shoemaker girded up in his leather
apron, with his knife in hand. He sprang forward and seized me by the
collar, while the other seized my arms behind. I was now in the grasp of
two men, either of whom were larger bodied than myself, and one of whom
was armed with a dangerous weapon.

Standing in the door of the shoemaker's shop, was a third man; and in the
potatoe lot I had passed, was still a fourth man. Thus surrounded by
superior physical force, the fortune of the day it seemed to me was gone.

My heart melted away, I sunk resistlessly into the hands of my captors,
who dragged me immediately into the tavern which was near. I ask my reader
to go in with me, and see how the case goes.

* * * * *

GREAT MORAL DILEMMA.

A few moments after I was taken into the bar-room, the news having gone as
by electricity, the house and yard were crowded with gossippers, who had
left their business to come and see "the runaway nigger." This hastily
assembled congregation consisted of men, women, and children, each one had
a look to give at, and a word to say about, the "nigger."

But among the whole, there stood one whose name I have never known, but