The slaves work often as long as they can see, and are late in cooking and mending for the coming day; and, at the first gray streak of morning, they are summoned to the field by the driver's horn.
More slaves are whipped for oversleeping than for any other fault.
Neither age nor sex finds any favor.

The overseer stands at the quarter door, armed with stick and cowskin, ready to whip any who may be a few minutes behind time.

When the horn is blown, there is a rush for the door, and the hindermost one is sure to get a blow from the overseer.
Young mothers who worked in the field, were allowed an hour, about ten o'clock in the morning, to go home to nurse their children.

Sometimes they were compelled to take their children with them, and to leave them in the corner of the fences, to prevent loss of time in nursing them.
The overseer generally rides about the field on horseback.

A cowskin and a hickory stick are his constant companions.