From that, I lived in constant dread of that man; and he would show how much he delighted in cruelty by chasing me from my play with threats and imprecations.

I have lain for hours in a wood, or behind a fence, to hide from his eye.
At this time my days were extremely dreary.

When I was nine years of age, myself and my brother were hired out from home; my brother was placed with a pump-maker, and I was placed with a stonemason.

We were both in a town some six miles from home.

As the men with whom we lived were not slaveholders, we enjoyed some relief from the peculiar evils of slavery.
Each of us lived in a family where there was no other negro.
The slaveholders in that state often hire the children of their slaves out to non-slaveholders, not only because they save themselves the expense of taking care of them, but in this way they get among their slaves useful trades.