still held her household servants, and made her boast that no one
could even hire her slaves to leave her.

"I'd like to see any one offer my niggers a book," she declared. "I
reckon they'd take it as an insult. They'd tell you mighty quick
they'd no use for books or schools. The niggers never will be as happy
as they have been. They'll soon die out. It's fearful to see them die
off as they do in these camps. They know nothing of taking care of
themselves. They are cared for by us as tenderly as our own children.
I tell you, they are the happiest people that live in this country. If
they are sick the doctor is sent for, and they are cared for in every
way, they know nothing of care."

"If they are such a happy class of people, how was it that you had
such a time of punishing and hanging them within the last two years?"
I asked.

"O, that had to be done to save our lives, because they were about to
rise in an awful insurrection."

"But what would induce them to rise in insurrection, when they are so
happy and contented as you have described?"

"O, there is always somebody ready to put the devil in their heads,"
was her ready reply.

But Mrs. Crosly's report was of a very different character. She said,
"There has never been the half told of this hell upon earth--the awful
wickedness on these Red River plantations, where I have lived ever
since I was fifteen years old. If you knew what I have passed through,