all was still; and while I was getting on one of my master’s horses I said to myself—­Master was in here at six o’clock and saw all these horses clean, so I must look out and be back time enough to have you clean when he gets up in the morning.  I thought what a dash I should cut among the pretty yellow and Sambo gals, and I felt quite confident, of course, that I should have my pick among the best looking ones, for my good clothes, and my abundance of money, and my own good looks—­in fact, I thought no mean things of my self.

When I arrived at the place where the dance was, it was at an old house in the woods, which had many years before been a negro meeting-house; there was a large crowd there, and about one hundred horses tied round the fence—­for some of them were far from home, and, like myself, they were all runaways, and their horses, like mine, had to be home and cleaned before their masters were up in the morning.  In getting my horse close up to the fence a nail caught my trousers at the thigh, and split them clean up to the seat; of course my shirt tail fell out behind, like a woman’s apron before.  This dreadful misfortune almost unmanned me, and curtailed both my pride and pleasure for the night.  I cried until I could cry no more.  However, I was determined I would not be done out of my sport after being at the expense of coming, so I went round and borrowed some pins, and pinned up my shirt tail as well as I could.  I then went into the dance, and told the fiddler to play me a jig.  Che, che, che, went the fiddle, when the banjo responded with a thrum, thrum, thrum, with the loud cracking of the bone player.  I seized a little Sambo gal, and round and round the room we went, my money and my buttons going jingle, jingle, jingle, seemed to take a lively part with the music, and to my great satisfaction every eye seemed to be upon me, and I could not help thinking about what an impression I should leave behind upon those pretty yellow and Sambo gals, who were gazing at me, thinking I was the richest and handsomest nigger they had ever seen:  but unfortunately the pins in my breeches gave way, and to my great confusion my shirt tail fell out; and what made my situation still more disgraceful was the mischievous conduct of my partner, the gal that I was dancing with, who instead of trying to conceal my shame caught my shirt tail behind and held it up.  The roar of laughter that came from both men and gals almost deafened me, and I would at this moment have sunk through the floor, so I endeavoured to creep out as slily as I could; but even this I was not permitted to do until I had undergone a hauling around the room by my unfortunate shirt tail:  and this part of the programme was performed by the gals, set on by the boys—­every nigger who could not stand up and laugh, because laughing made them weak, fell down on the floor and rolled round and round.  When the gals saw their own turn they let me go and I hurried outside and stood