At that time, two negroes, who had run away from their masters sometime
before, were the only inhabitants of those flats. They lived in a small
cabin and had planted and raised a large field of corn, which they had not
yet harvested. As they were in want of help to secure their crop, I hired
to them to husk corn till the whole was harvested.

I have laughed a thousand times to myself when I have thought of the good
old negro, who hired me, who fearing that I should get taken or injured by
the Indians, stood by me constantly when I was husking, with a loaded gun
in his hand, in order to keep off the enemy, and thereby lost as much
labor of his own as he received from me, by paying good wages. I, however,
was not displeased with his attention; for I knew that I should need all
the corn that I could earn, even if I should husk the whole. I husked
enough for them, to gain for myself, at every tenth string, one hundred
strings of ears, which were equal to twenty-five bushels of shelled corn.
This seasonable supply made my family comfortable for samp and cakes
through the succeeding winter, which was the most severe that I have
witnessed since my remembrance. The snow fell about five feet deep, and
remained so for a long time, and the weather was extremely cold; so much
so indeed, that almost all the game upon which the Indians depended for
subsistence, perished, and reduced them almost to a state of starvation
through that and three or four succeeding years. When the snow melted in
the spring, deer were found dead upon the ground in vast numbers; and
other animals, of every description, perished from the cold also, and were
found dead, in multitudes. Many of our people barely escaped with their
lives, and some actually died of hunger and freezing.

But to return from this digression: Having been completely routed at
Little Beard's Town, deprived of a house, and without the means of
building one in season, after I had finished my husking, and having found