The bet Capt. Helm made considerable effort to get, but was
unsuccessful.
Mrs. Helm was a very industrious woman, and generally busy in her
household affairs--sewing, knitting, and looking after the servants; but
she was a great scold,--continually finding fault with some of the
servants, and frequently punishing the young slaves herself, by striking
them over the head with a heavy iron key, until the blood ran; or else
whipping them with a cowhide, which she always kept by her side when
sitting in her room. The older servants she would cause to be punished
by having them severely whipped by a man, which she never failed to do for
every trifling fault. I have felt the weight of some of her heaviest keys
on my own head, and for the slightest offences. No slave could possibly
escape being punished--I care not how attentive they might be, nor how
industrious--punished they must be, and punished they certainly were. Mrs.
Helm appeared to be uneasy unless some of the servants were under the
lash. She came into the kitchen one morning and my mother, who was cook,
had just put on the dinner. Mrs. Helm took out her white cambric
handkerchief, and rubbed it on the inside of the pot, and it crocked it!
That was enough to invoke the wrath of my master, who came forth
immediately with his horse-whip, with which he whipped my poor mother
most unmercifully--far more severely than I ever knew him to whip a horse.
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