Incidents in the life of a slave girl.: Written by herself. Edited by L. Maria Child.

290 Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl.
hab," he replied. " I tuk car fur dat. I'd bin workin
all my days fur dem cussed whites, an got no pay but
kicks and cuffs. So I fought dis nigger had a right to
money nuff to bring him to de Free States. Massa
Henry he lib till ebery body vish him dead; an ven
he did die, I knowed de debbil would hab him, an
vouldn't vant him to bring his money'long too. So
I tuk some of his bills, and put'em in de pocket of
his ole trousers. An ven he was buried, dis nigger
ask fur dem ole trousers, an dey gub'em to me."
With a low, chuckling laugh, he added, " You see I
didn't steal it; dey gub it to me. I tell you, I had
mighty hard time to keep de speculator from findin
it; but hlie didn't git it."
This is a fair specimen of how the moral sense is
educated by slavery. When a man has his wages
stolen from him, year after year, and the laws sanction
and enforce the theft, how can hlie be expected to have
more regard to honesty than has the man who robs
him? I have become somewhat enlightened, but I
tconfess that I agree with poor, ignorant, much-abused
Luke, in thinking he had a right to that money, as a
/ portion of his unpaid wages. He went to Canada forth with, and I have not since heard from him.
All that winter I lived in a state of anxiety. When
I took the children out to breathe the air, I closely
observed the countenances of all I met. I dreaded
the approach of summer, when snakes and slavehold ers make their appearance. 1I as, in fact, a slave in
New York, as subject to slave laws as I had been in a
Slave State. Strange incongruity in a State called free!
Spring returned, and I received warning fromi the