294 UNCLE TOM’S CABIN; OR,

into meal, to fit it for the cake that was to constitute their only
supper. From the earliest dawn of the day, they had been in the
fields, pressed to work under the driving lash of the overseers ;
for it was now in the very heat and hurry of the season, and no
means were left untried to press everyone up to the top of their
capabilities. “True,” says the negligent lounger; ‘‘ picking cotton
isn’t hard work.” Isn't it? And it isnt much inconvenience,
either, to have one drop of water fall on your head ; yet the worst
torture of the Inquisition is produced by drop after drop, drop
after drop, falling moment after moment, with monotonous suc
cession, on the same spot; and work in itself not hard becomes
so by being pressed, hour after hour, with unvarying, unrelenting
sameness, with not even the consciousness of free-will to take
from its tediousness. Tom lodked in vain among the gang, as
they poured along, for companionable faces. He saw only sullen,
- scowling, embruted men, and feeble, discouraged women, or women
that were not women—the strong pushing away the weak—the
gross, unrestricted animal selfishness of human beings, of whom
nothing good was expected and desired; and who, treated in
every way like brutes, had sunk as nearly to their level as it was
possible for human beings to do. Toa late hour in the night the
sound of the grinding was protracted ; for the mills were few in
number compared with the grinders, and the weary and feeble
ones were driven back by the strong, and came on last in their

“Ho yo!” said Sambo, coming to the mulatto woman, and
throwing down a bag of corn before her, ‘ what a cuss you
name ?”

“Lucy,” said the woman.

“Wal, Lucy, yo my woman.now. Yo grind dis yer corn, and
get my supper baked, ye har ?”

‘7 an’t your woman, and I won't be!’ said the woman, with the
sharp, sudden courage of despair ; “you go long.”

« Tl] kick yo, then!” said Sambo, raising his foot threateningly.

‘Ye may kill me, if ye choose—the sooner the better! Wish't
I was dead!” said she. |

“‘T say, Sambo, you go to spilin’ the hands, I'll tell mas’r 0’
you,” said Quimbo, who was busy at the mill, from which he had
viciously driven two or three tired women, who were waiting to

ind their corn.

« And I'll tell him ye won't let the women come to the mills,
yo old nigger !” said Sambo. ‘ Yo jes keep to yo own row.”

Tom was hungry with his day’s journey, and almost faint for
want of food.

“Thar, yo!” said Quimbo, throwing down a coarse bag, which
contained a peck of corn; “thar, nigger, grab—take car on’t, yo
won't get no more dis yer week.”

Tom waited till a late hour to get a place at the mills; and