The Curious Axe-Helve--Symptoms of approaching Illness--Continue to decline--The Whip ineffectual--Confined to the Cabin--Visit by Dr. Wines--Partial Recovery--Failure at Cotton Picking--What may be heard on Epps' Plantation--Lashes Graduated--Epps in a Whipping Mood--Epps in a Dancing Mood--Description of the Dance--Loss of Rest no Excuse--Epps' Characteristics--Jim Burns--Removal from Huff Power to Bayou Boeuf--Description of Uncle Abram; of Wiley; of Aunt Phebe; of Bob, Henry, and Edward; of Patsey; with a Genealogical Account of each--Something of their Past History, and Peculiar Characteristics-- Jealousy and Lust--Patsey, the Victim, 176
Destruction of the Cotton Crop in 1845--Demand for Laborers in St. Mary's Parish--Sent thither in a Drove--The Order of the March--The Grand Coteau--Hired to Judge Turner on Bayou Salle--Appointed Driver in his Sugar House--Sunday Services--Slave Furniture; how obtained--The Party at Yarney's, in Centreville--Good Fortune--The Captain of the Steamer--His Refusal to Secrete me--Return to Bayou Boeuf--Sight of Tibeats--Patsey's Sorrows--Tumult and Contention--Hunting the Coon and Opossum--The Cunning of the latter--The Lean Condition of the Slave--Description of the Fish Trap--The Murder of the Man from Natchez--Epps Challenged by Marshall--The Influence of Slavery--The Love of Freedom, 191
Labors on Sugar Plantations--The Mode of Planting Cane--of Hoeing Cane--Cane Ricks--Cutting Cane--Description of the Cane Knife--Winrowing--Preparing for Succeeding Crops--Description of Hawkins' Sugar Mill on Bayou Boeuf--The Christmas Holidays--The Carnival Season of the Children of Bondage--The Christmas Supper--Red, the Favorite Color--The Violin, and the Consolation it afforded--The Christmas Dance--Lively, the Coquette--Sam Roberts, and his Rivals--Slave Songs--Southern Life as it is--Three Days in the Year--The System of Marriage--Uncle Abram's Contempt of Matrimony, 208
Overseers--How they are Armed and Accompanied--The Homicide--His Execution at Marksville--Slave Drivers--Appointed Driver on removing to Bayou Boeuf--Practice makes perfect--Epps's Attempt to Cut Platt's Throat--The Escape from him--Protected by the Mistress--Forbids Reading and Writing--Obtain a Sheet of Paper after Nine Years' Effort--The Letter--Armsby, the Mean White--Partially confide in him--His Treachery--Epps' Suspicions--How they were quieted--Burning the Letter--Armsby leaves the Bayou--Disappointment and Despair, 223