Removed from My First HomeTHE NAME "OLD MASTER" A TERROR--COLONEL LLOYD'S PLANTATION--WYERIVER--WHENCE ITS NAME--POSITION OF THE LLOYDS--HOME ATTRACTION--MEET OFFERING--JOURNEY FROM TUCKAHOE TO WYE RIVER--SCENE ONREACHING OLD MASTER'S--DEPARTURE OF GRANDMOTHER--STRANGE MEETINGOF SISTERS AND BROTHERS--REFUSAL TO BE COMFORTED--SWEET SLEEP.
That mysterious individual referred to in the first chapter as an object of terror among the inhabitants of our little cabin, under the ominous title of "old master," was really a man of some consequence. He owned several farms in Tuckahoe; was the chief clerk and butler on the home plantation of Col. Edward Lloyd; had overseers on his own farms; and gave directions to overseers on the farms belonging to Col. Lloyd. This plantation is situated on Wye river--the river receiving its name, doubtless, from Wales, where the Lloyds originated. They (the Lloyds) are an old and honored family in Maryland, exceedingly wealthy. The home plantation, where they have resided, perhaps for a century or more, is one of the largest, most fertile, and best appointed, in the state.
About this plantation, and about that queer old master--who must be something more than a man, and something worse than an angel--the reader will easily imagine that I was not only curious, but eager, to know all that could be known. Unhappily for me, however, all the information I could get concerning him increased my great dread of being carried thither--of being <34>separated from and deprived of the protection of my grandmother and grandfather. It was, evidently, a great thing to go to Col.
Lloyd's; and I was not without a little curiosity to see the place; but no amount of coaxing could induce in me the wish to remain there. The fact is, such was my dread of leaving the little cabin, that I wished to remain little forever, for I knew the taller I grew the shorter my stay. The old cabin, with its rail floor and rail bedsteads upstairs, and its clay floor downstairs, and its dirt chimney, and windowless sides, and that most curious piece of workmanship dug in front of the fireplace, beneath which grandmammy placed the sweet potatoes to keep them from the frost, was MY HOME--the only home I ever had; and Iloved it, and all connected with it. The old fences around it, and the stumps in the edge of the woods near it, and the squirrels that ran, skipped, and played upon them, were objects of interest and affection. There, too, right at the side of the hut, stood the old well, with its stately and skyward-pointing beam, so aptly placed between the limbs of what had once been a tree, and so nicely balanced that I could move it up and down with only one hand, and could get a drink myself without calling for help. Where else in the world could such a well be found, and where could such another home be met with? Nor were these all the attractions of the place. Down in a little valley, not far from grandmammy's cabin, stood Mr. Lee's mill, where the people came often in large numbers to get their corn ground. It was a watermill; and I never shall be able to tell the many things thought and felt, while I sat on the bank and watched that mill, and the turning of that ponderous wheel. The mill-pond, too, had its charms; and with my pinhook, and thread line, Icould get _nibbles_, if I could catch no fish. But, in all my sports and plays, and in spite of them, there would, occasionally, come the painful foreboding that I was not long to remain there, and that I must soon be called away to the home of old master.
I was A SLAVE--born a slave and though the fact was in <35DEPARTURE FROM TUCKAHOE>comprehensible to me, it conveyed to my mind a sense of my entire dependence on the will of _somebody_ Ihad never seen; and, from some cause or other, I had been made to fear this somebody above all else on earth. Born for another's benefit, as the _firstling_ of the cabin flock I was soon to be selected as a meet offering to the fearful and inexorable _demigod_, whose huge image on so many occasions haunted my childhood's imagination. When the time of my departure was decided upon, my grandmother, knowing my fears, and in pity for them, kindly kept me ignorant of the dreaded event about to transpire. Up to the morning (a beautiful summer morning) when we were to start, and, indeed, during the whole journey--a journey which, child as I was, I remember as well as if it were yesterday--she kept the sad fact hidden from me. This reserve was necessary; for, could I have known all, I should have given grandmother some trouble in getting me started. As it was, I was helpless, and she--dear woman!--led me along by the hand, resisting, with the reserve and solemnity of a priestess, all my inquiring looks to the last.
