There was no dinner till dark, when he gave the order to knock off and go home. The meal then was the same as in the morning, except that we had meat twice a week.
On very few estates are the colored people provided with any bedding: the best masters give only a blanket; this master gave none; a board, which the slave might pick up any where on the estate, was all he had to lie on. If he wished to procure bedding, he could only do so by working at nights. For warmth, therefore, the negroes generally sleep near a large fire, whether in the kitchen, or in their log huts; their legs are often in this way blistered and greatly swelled, and sometimes badly burnt: they suffer severely from this cause.
When the water-mill did not supply meal enough, we had to grind with the hand-mill. The night was employed in this work, without any thing being taken from the labor of the day. We had to take turn at it, women as well as men; enough was to be ground to serve for the following day.
I was eight months in the field. My master, Mr. Sawyer, agreed to allow me eight dollars a month, while so employed, towards buying myself; it will be seen he did not give me even that. When I first went to work in the corn-field, I had paid him $230 towards this third buying of my freedom. I told him, one night, I could not stand his field work any longer; he asked, why; I said I was almost starved to death, and had long been unaccustomed to this severe labor. He wanted to know why I could not stand it as well as the rest. I told him he knew well I had not been used to it for a long time; that his overseer was the worst that had ever been on the plantation, and that I could not stand it. He said he would direct Mr. Brooks to give each of us a pint of meal or corn every evening, which we might bake, and which would serve us next morning, till our breakfast came at noon. The black people were much rejoiced that I got this additional allowance for them. But I was not satisfied; I wanted liberty.