The slaves, were, she declared, the
happiest people in the world, all care and responsibility being taken
from their shoulders by masters who were kind enough to look out for
their wants.
But one day she unwittingly exposed a glimpse of the reverse side of
the picture. She told the story of a young slave girl who had been
accused of larceny. She had picked up some trifling article that
ordinarily no one would have cared anything about; but at this time it
was thought well to make an example of somebody. The wrists of the
poor creature were fastened together by a cord that passed through a
ring in the side of the barn, which had been put there for that
purpose, and she was drawn up, with her face to the building, until
her toes barely touched the ground. Then, in the presence of all her
fellow-slaves, and with her clothing so detached as to expose her
naked shoulders, she was flogged until the blood trickled down her
back.
"I felt almost as bad for her," said the narrator, "as if she had been
one of my own kind."
"Thank God she was not one of your kind!" exclaimed a voice that
fairly sizzled with rage.
The speaker who happened to be present was a relative of the author
and a red-hot Abolitionist.
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