I gently pulled the bed-clothes down to her feet and rolled up her night dress to her chin without waking her. Then I took a good look at her naked charms. And they were worth looking at. Her skin was as white as milk and without a blemish; she really was very well-made, and perfectly proportioned.- Her little bubbies stood out from her bosom in high relief; her plump, well-rounded thighs were shapely; she had good legs; her ankles were slender; her belly was without a wrinkle-she evidently had never had a child-and her rose-bed was shaded with fine, curly, golden hair.
My pintle was as stiff as a poker, so I woke her by gently tickling the edge of her grotto with my forefinger. She looked smilingly up in my face, her big blue eyes twinkling with fun, saying:
So you have prepared me for the morning sacrifice. Well, I am ready to receive the stroke.
She then stretched out her legs and in a few seconds I had given her a strong morning poke, which pleased me more than the ones I had had overnight, for, while I was working at her, the little woman had bucked up more briskly and had wriggled her bottom in the spasm even more lasciviously than on the two other occasions. She really seemed to like the digging I gave her, and I don’t think she had pretended to be voluptuously excited merely to please me.
Presently we began to chat on various subjects, her conversation showing that she took an intelligent interest in the affairs of the day. Our talk eventually turned to what was at that period a burning topic, the late civil war, and I asked her which side had had her sympathies.
I am a Northern woman, she replied, so I was always for the Union, and am exceedingly glad that the Southerners were beaten and the slaves set free. Slavery was a horrible thing and a disgrace to the country.
But, I said, from all the accounts one hears, it seems that the Negroes in the South were better off before the war as slaves than they are now as free people.
Oh, but they are free now, and that is the great point. No doubt things are bad at present, but they will improve in time.
I thought that, as a rule, the slaves were well-treated by their owners.
So they were in many cases, she replied, but there was no security for them; there was always the chance of their being sold to strange people; and then wives were separated from their husbands, and children from their parents. Besides, there were many owners who treated their slaves badly-working them hard, feeding them scantily and whipping them cruelly for the least offense. Then again, slaves had no rights of any sort. The girls and women, if light colored and pretty, were not allowed to be virtuous, even if they wished to be. They were obliged to give themselves up to the embraces of their masters, and, if a woman dared to object, she was severely whipped.
Oh, surely you must be mistaken, I observed. No, I am not. I know what I am talking about, for I lived in a slave state before the war, and I had special opportunities for finding out all about slavery and the distressing things connected with it.
Was it a common thing for women to be whipped? I asked.
Yes; I do not suppose that there was a single plantation in the whole of the South where the female slaves were not whipped. Of course, on some plantations there was more whipping than on others. And what made the thing more horrid was the fact that the whippings were always inflicted by men, and very often in the most public way.
On what part of the body were the slave women whipped; and what instruments of punishment were used? I inquired.
Sometimes they were whipped on the back, but most frequently on the bottom; the instruments used were various; there was the hickory switch, the strap and the paddle.
What is the paddle?
It is a round flat piece of wood fixed to a long handle, and it was always used on the bottom.
It does not draw blood, but each stroke raises a blister on the skin and bruises the flesh. The hickory switch, if used with any degree of force, will cut the skin and draw blood. There was another terrible instrument of punishment called ’the cowhide,’ but it was very seldom used on women.
You seem to know all about whipping. Now tell me how it was you came to be living in a slave state, said I.
I was helping to run a station on the ’underground railroad’; but I suppose you don’t know what an ’underground station’ is.
No, I do not, what is it?
’Underground railroad stations’ were houses in which the abolitionists used to conceal the runaway slaves. There were a number of these ’stations’ in various parts of the South, and the runaway was forwarded secretly by night from one ’station’ to another, till he or she finally got to a free state. It was dangerous work, because assisting a slave to escape was against the laws of the South, and to do so was considered a very great crime. Any man or woman caught at such work was sure of getting a long term of imprisonment with hard labor in the State’s prison. Besides, everyone’s hand was against the abolitionist; not only the slave-owners, but also the ordinary white people who did not own a single slave, and it often happened that abolitionists were lynched. They were tarred and feathered, or ridden on a rail or made to suffer in some other way by bands of lawless men.
Did you ever get into trouble while you were at the ’underground station?’ I asked.
Yes I did. I got into bitter trouble, and went through dreadful sufferings. In fact, what happened to me changed the whole course of my life and was the cause of my being what I am now. Oh, how I hate the Southerners! The cruel wretches! she exclaimed fiercely, her eyes flashing, her bosom heaving and her cheeks reddening.
I was surprised at her sudden outburst of anger, and it at once struck me that the little woman had a story. I was curious to hear it, so I said: I should very much like to hear what happened to you in the South. Will you tell me?
After a moment’s hesitation, she replied: I have never told my story to a man yet; but I will tell it to you, as you are an Englishman and I think you have a sympathetic nature. The story is a very long one, and there is not time to tell it to you now, but if you will come here tonight at seven o’clock and dine quietly with me, I will give you a full account of my life.
I replied that I should be delighted to dine with her and that it would give me great pleasure to hear her story.
Just then there was a knock at the door and the quadroon woman, neatly dressed and wearing a smart cap on her head, came into the room with tea and buttered toast on a tray, which she placed on a table beside the bed.
My companion sat up, saying to the quadroon: Mary, give me my wrapper.
The woman handed her mistress the garment, which she threw over her shoulders. Then turning to me, Dolly said with a smile: Mary was a slave for twenty-five years, and if you’d like to ask her any questions about her life she will answer you truthfully. She is not shy. Are you, Mary?
The quadroon, who was a very buxom, rather good-looking woman, smiled broadly, showing a double row of white teeth between her full, red lips. No, Miss Dolly, she replied, I isn’t shy.
I was quite ready to ask Mary to give me some information about herself, so to begin with, I said: Well Mary, how old are you and what state do you come from?
I’se thirty years old, Sah, an’ I was raised on ole Major Bascombe’s plantation in de state ob Alabama. Dere was one hundred an’ fifty field hands on de plantation, an’ twelve house servants in de place. I was one ob de parlormaids, Sah, she added with a sort of pride.
Was your master a good one? I next asked the woman.
Well, Sah, he was a pretty good Massa on de whole; he fed us well, an’ he didn’t work us too hard; but he was bery strict, an’ dere was plenty ob whipping on de plantation, an’ in de house too.