"
"Did you ever run away?"
"No, sar."
"Did you ever strike your master?"
"No, sar."
"Were you ever whipped much?"
"No, sar; I s'pose I didn't deserve it, sar."
"How long did you live with your second master?"
"Ten years, sar."
"Have you a good appetite?"
"Yes, sar."
"Can you eat your allowance?"
"Yes, sar,--when I can get it."
"Where were you employed in Virginia?"
"I worked de tobacker fiel'."
"In the tobacco field, eh?"
"Yes, sar."
"How old did you say you was?"
"Twenty-five, sar, nex' sweet-'tater-diggin' time."
"I am a cotton-planter, and if I buy you, you will have to work in
the cotton-field. My men pick one hundred and fifty pounds a day,
and the women one hundred and forty pounds; and those who fail to
perform their task receive five stripes for each pound that is
wanting. Now, do you think you could keep up with the rest of the
hands?"
"I' don't know sar but I 'specs I'd have to."
"How long did you live with your third master?"
"Three years, sar."
"Why, that makes you thirty-three. I thought you told me you were
only twenty-five?"
Aaron now looked first at the planter, then at the trader, and
seemed perfectly bewildered. He had forgotten the lesson given him
by Pompey relative to his age; and the planter's circuitous
questions--doubtless to find out the slave's real age--had thrown
the negro off his guard.
"I must see your back, so as to know how much you have been
whipped, before I think of buying.
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