_Author._ “Well, Peter, you found yourself in a wild country, out there in Cayuga, I reckon.”
_Peter._ “You’re right, there’s no mistake ’bout _that_; most every body lived in loghouses, and the woods was full of wild varmints as they could hold; well, as soon as we’d got there, we went to buildin’ a log house; for see master owned a large farm out there, and as soon as we gits there we goes right on to work; we finally got the house up, and gits into it, and durin’ the time I suffered _most unaccountably_. There we went to buildin’ a log barn tu, and we had to notch the logs at both ends to fay into each other; well, as I was workin’ on ’em, I got one notched, and we lifted it up breast high to put it on, and he sees ’twas a _leetle_ tu short, and nobody was to blame, and if any body ’twas _him_, for he measured it off; but he no sooner sees it, than he drops his end, and doubles up his fist, and knockes me on the temples, while I was yit a holdin’ on, and down I went, and the log on me, and oh! how he _swore_! well, it struck my foot, and smashed it as flat as a pancake, and in five minutes it swelled up as big as a puffball, and I couldn’t hardly walk for a week, and yit I had to be on the move all the time, and he _cussed_ cause I didn’t go faster. When I gits up I couldn’t only stand on one leg, but he made me stand on it, and lift up that log breast high, but he didn’t lift a pound, but cried out ‘_lift, lift_, you black cuss.’ Well, we got the logs up, and when we was a puttin’ the rafters on, I happened to make a mistake in not gittin’ one on ’em into the right place, and he knocked me off of the plate, where I was a standin’ and I and the rafter went a tumblin’ together, down to the ground. It hurt me distressedly, and I cried, but gits up, and says, ‘master, I thinks you treat me rather.’ ‘Stop your mouth, you black devil, or I’ll throw these ’ere adz at your head;’ and I _had_ to shet my mouth, _pretty sudden, tu_, and keep it shet, and he made me lift up that rafter when I couldn’t hardly stand, and keep on to work; and there I set on the evesplate a tremblin’ jist like a leaf, and every move he made, I ’spected he’d hurl me off agin’, and his voice seemed like a tempest—oh! how savage! But he didn’t knock me _off_ agin’—I had to thatch that barn in the coldest kind of weather, with nothin’ but ragged thin clothes on; and I used to git some bloody floggin’s, cause I didn’t thatch fast enough.