While I must characterize Master Hugh as being a very
sour man, and of forbidding appearance, it is due to him to
acknowledge, that he was never very cruel to me, according to the
notion of cruelty in Maryland. The first year or two which I
spent in his house, he left me almost exclusively to the
management of his wife. She was my law-giver. In hands so
tender as hers, and in the absence of the cruelties of the
plantation, I became, both physically and mentally, much more
sensitive to good and ill treatment; and, perhaps, suffered more
from a frown from my mistress, than I formerly did from a cuff at
the hands of Aunt Katy. Instead of the cold, damp floor of my
old master's kitchen, I found myself on carpets; for the corn bag
in winter, I now had a good straw bed, well furnished with
covers; for the coarse corn-meal in the morning, I now had good
bread, and mush occasionally; for my poor tow-lien shirt,
reaching to my knees, I had good, clean clothes. I was really
well off. My employment was to run errands, and to take care of
Tommy; to prevent his getting in the way of carriages, and to
keep him out of harm's way generally.
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