Sir, I have stood at the door and heard her whipped, when it seemed as if every blow cut into my naked heart, and I couldn't do anything to help her; and she was whipped, sir, for wanting to live a decent Christian life, such as your laws give no slave girl a right to live; and at last I saw her chained with a trader's gang, to be sent to market in Orleans,--sent there for nothing else but that,--and that's the last I know of her.

Well, I grew up,--long years and years,--no father, no mother, no sister, not a living soul that cared for me more than a dog; nothing but whipping, scolding, starving.

Why, sir, I've been so hungry that I have been glad to take the bones they threw to their dogs; and yet, when I was a little fellow, and laid awake whole nights and cried, it wasn't the hunger, it wasn't the whipping, I cried for.

No, sir, it was for _my mother_ and _my sisters_,--it was because I hadn't a friend to love me on earth.

I never knew what peace or comfort was.