The monotonous tedium of routine slave-labor was very often broken by
some scene of cruelty to one or another of the poor blacks, either by
the master or his overseer; and woe unto the luckless one if the master
should happen to be in a good mood to break bones. Although slaves were
worth money in the South at that time, yet the ungovernable passions of
some if not most masters found free vent in cruelty to their own
property--that is, their slaves. This was the case with Wilson, and no
opportunity was missed by him to make a poor black feel the effects of
his brutish nature and passions. His wife, on the other hand, made every
effort to protect the blacks on the plantation as much as possible. When
Wilson threatened to send me to hell, as he had tried to send uncle
Ben, Mrs. Wilson came forward in my behalf and saved me from her
husband's unwarranted wrath by telling him that she wished "Charles to
accompany her children to school and take such care of them as might be
required." It was customary in the South for families who owned slaves
to send one or more of them with their children when they attended
school as waiters, or personal servants, and as I belonged to Mrs.
Wilson, being an inherited chattel, Wilson acceded to her demand, and I
was sent along with the children when they went to school. I was not
allowed to sit with the white children in school, but I "loafed around
handy," ready for a call from either of my young mistresses.

The "laws," the enlightened laws of the southern states, prohibited,
under heavy penalties, the education of a slave, or even a negro,
although free; yet some of us, under very disadvantageous circumstances,
learned to read and write.

It has always been a kind of habit with me to "be doing something" all
the time, and when not actually employed in some active work I would
make use of my time for some good purpose; and while "loafing around"