He
took him out of jail and gave him a home, and would have looked after
him till he died if the war hadn't broken out. Aleck wasn't raised on
our plantation. He was a runaway from North Carolina. There were three
of them that got across the river--a man and his wife and Aleck. The
slave-driver had caught Aleck in our town and had locked him up in the
caboose for safe-keeping. Then he came to my father to help him catch
the other two. But my father wasn't that kind of a man. The old
gentleman had curious notions about a good many things. He believed when
a slave ran away that the fault was oftener the master's than the
negro's. 'They are nothing but children,' he would say, 'and you must
treat them like children. Whipping is a poor way to bring anybody up.'
"So when my father heard about the three runaways he refused to have
anything to do with the case. This made the driver anxious.
"'Judge,' he said--my father had been a Judge of the County Court for
years--'if you'll take the case I'll give you this boy Aleck as a fee.
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