My Life in the South | Page 9

and having had a chance
to see how men were being punished, it was a very poor consolation to
me.
Finally the time came for us to go to bed, and we all knelt in family
prayer. Father thanked God for having saved me from a worse injury,
and then he prayed for mother's comfort, and also for the time which he
predicted would come, that is, the time of freedom, when I and the rest
of the children would be our own masters and mistresses; then he

commended us to God, and we all went to bed. The next morning I
went to my work with a great deal of pain. They did not send me up the
road with the horses in that condition, but I had to ride the old horses to
water, and work around the stable until I was well enough to go with
the other boys. But I am happy to say that from the time I got hurt by
that horse I was never thrown except through carelessness, neither was
I afraid of a horse after that.
Notwithstanding father and mother fretted very much about me, they
were proud of my success as a rider, but my hardships did not end here.
A short time after, I was taken to Columbia and Charleston, S.C.,
where they used to have the races. That year Col. Singleton won a large
sum of money by the well-known horse, Capt. Miner, and that was the
same season that I rode my trial race. The next year, before the time of
racing, Col. Singleton died at his summer seat. After master's death,
mistress sold all the race horses, and that put an end to sporting horses
in that family.
I said that Boney Young, Col. Singleton's groom, had a brother by the
name of Charles, who trained horses for the colonel's brother, John
Singleton, Boney was a better trainer, but Charles was a better man to
the negroes. It was against the law for a slave to buy spirituous liquors
without a ticket, but Charles used to give the boys tickets to buy rum
and whiskey with. He also allowed them to steal the neighbor's cows
and hogs.
I remember that on one occasion his boys killed a cow belonging to a
man by the name of Le Brun; soon after the meat was brought to the
stable, Le Brun rode up on horseback with a loaded shot gun and
threatened to shoot the party with whom the beef was found. Of course
the negroes' apartments were searched; but as that had been anticipated,
Mr. Young had made them put the meat in his apartment, and, as it was
against the law of South Carolina for a white man to search another's
house, or any apartment, without very strong evidence, the meat was
not found. Before searching among the negroes, Mr. Young said to Le
Brun, "You may search, but you won't find your beef here, for my boys
don't steal." Le Brun answered, "Mr. Young, your word might be true,
sir, but I would trust a nigger with money a great deal sooner than I
would with cows and hogs." Mr. Young answered, "That might be true,
but you won't find your beef here."

After their rooms and clothes had been searched, blood was found
under some of their finger nails, which increased Le Brun's suspicion
that they were of the party who stole his cow; but Mr. Young answered,
"that blood is from rabbits my boys caught today." Mr. Le Brun tried to
scare one of the boys, to make him say it was the blood of his cow. Mr.
Young said, "Mr. Le Brun, you have searched and did not find your
beef, as I told you that you would not; also I told you that the blood
under their finger nails is from rabbits caught today. You will have to
take my word, sir, without going to further trouble; furthermore, these
boys belong to Mr. Singleton, and if you want to take further steps you
will have to see him." Finding that he was not allowed to do as he
wanted to, Mr. Le Brun made great oaths and threats as he mounted his
horse to leave, that he would shoot the very first one of those boys he
should catch near his cattle. He and Mr. Young never did agree after
that.
But poor Mr. Young, as good as he was to the negroes, was an enemy
to himself, for he was a very hard drinker. People who knew him before
I did said they never had seen him drink tea, coffee, or water, but rather
rum and whiskey; he drank so hard that he used to go into a crazy fit;
he finally put