Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass by Frederick Douglass

Author:Frederick Douglass [Douglass, Frederick]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3, pdf
Tags: Biography & autobiography, General, Socialism
ISBN: 9789635245512
Google: zRz4CQAAQBAJ
Publisher: Booklassic
Published: 2015-06-22T05:13:49+00:00

CHAPTER X.

I LEFT Master Thomas’s house, and went to live with Mr.

Covey, on the 1st of January, 1833. I was now, for the first time

in my life, a field hand. In my new employment, I found myself

even more awkward than a country boy appeared to be in a

large city. I had been at my new home but one week before Mr.

Covey gave me a very severe whipping, cutting my back,

causing the blood to run, and raising ridges on my flesh as large

as my little finger. The details of this affair are as follows: Mr.

Covey sent me, very early in the morning of one of our coldest

days in the month of January, to the woods, to get a load of

wood. He gave me a team of unbroken oxen. He told me which

was the in-hand ox, and which the off-hand one. He then tied

the end of a large rope around the horns of the in-hand ox, and

gave me the other end of it, and told me, if the oxen started to

run, that I must hold on upon the rope. I had never driven oxen

before, and of course I was very awkward. I, however,

succeeded in getting to the edge of the woods with little

difficulty; but I had got a very few rods into the woods, when

the oxen took fright, and started full tilt, carrying the cart

against trees, and over stumps, in the most frightful manner. I

expected every moment that my brains would be dashed out

against the trees. After running thus for a considerable distance,

they finally upset the cart, dashing it with great force against a

tree, and threw themselves into a dense thicket. How I escaped

death, I do not know. There I was, entirely alone, in a thick

wood, in a place new to me. My cart was upset and shattered,

my oxen were entangled among the young trees, and there was

none to help me. After a long spell of effort, I succeeded in

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NARRATIVE OF THE

getting my cart righted, my oxen disentangled, and again yoked

to the cart. I now proceeded with my team to the place where I

had, the day before, been chopping wood, and loaded my cart

pretty heavily, thinking in this way to tame my oxen. I then

proceeded on my way home. I had now consumed one half of

the day. I got out of the woods safely, and now felt out of

danger. I stopped my oxen to open the woods gate; and just as I

did so, before I could get hold of my ox-rope, the oxen again

started, rushed through the gate, catching it between the wheel

and the body of the cart, tearing it to pieces, and coming within

a few inches of crushing me against the gate-post. Thus twice,

in one short day, I escaped death by the merest chance. On my

return, I told Mr. Covey what had happened, and how it

happened. He ordered me to return to the woods again

immediately. I did so, and he followed on after me. Just as I got

into the woods, he came up and told me to stop my cart, and

that he would teach me how to trifle away my time, and break

gates.

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