300 UNCLE TOM’S CABIN; OR,

“ Dog!” she said, “ touch me, if you dare! I’ve power enough
yet to have you torn by the dogs, burnt alive, cut to inches! I’ve
only to say the word !” |

‘“ What de devil you here for, den?” said the man, evidently
cowed, and sullenly retreating a step or two. ‘ Didn't mean no
harm, Misse Cassy !”

“ Keep your distance, then!” said the woman. And, in truth,
the man seemed greatly inclined to attend to something at the
other end of the field, and started off in quick time.

The woman suddenly turned to her work, and laboured with a
despatch that was perfectly astonishing to Tom. She seemed to
work by magic. Before the day was through, her basket was
filled, crowded down, and piled, and she had several times put
largely into Tom’s. Long after dusk, the whole weary train, with
their baskets on their heads, defiled up to ‘the building appro-
priated to the storing and weighing the cotton. Legree was
there, busily conversing with the two drivers.

“Dat ar Tom’s gwine to make a powerful deal o’ trouble; kept
a puttin’ into Lucy's basket. One o’ these yer dat will get all der
niggers to feelin’ "bused, if mas’r don’t watch him !”’ said Sambo.

‘“Hey-dey! The black cuss!” said Legree. ‘ He'll have to
get a breakin’ in, won’t he, boys?”

Both negroes grinned a horrid grin at this intimation.

« Ay, ay! let Mas’r Legree alone for breakin’ in! De debil
heself couldn’t beat mas’r at dat!” said Quimbo.

“ Wal, boys, the best way is to give him the flogging to do till
he gets over his notions. Break him in!”

“ Lord, mas’r ‘ll have hard work to get dat out o’ him!”

“Tt’ll have to come out of him, though!” said Legree, as he
rolled his tobacco in his mouth. :

‘Now, dar’s Lucy—de aggravatinest, ugliest wench on de
place!” pursued Sambo.

“Take care, Sam! I shall begin to think what’s the reason
for your spite agin Lucy.”

‘; Well, mas’r knows she sot herself up agin mas'r, and wouldn't
have me when he telled her to.”

“T'd a flogged her into’t,” said Legree, spitting ; “ only there’s
such a press o’ work, it don’t seem wuth a while to upset her jist
now. She's slender; but these yer slender gals will bear half
killin’ to get their own way !”

“Wal, Lucy was real aggravatin’ and lazy, sulkin’ round ;
wouldn’t do nothin’—and Tom he tuck up for her.”

‘He did, eh? Wal, then, Tom shall have the pleasure of
flogging her. It'll be a good practice for him, and he won't put it
on to the gal like you devils, neither.”

- «Ho, ho! haw! haw! haw!” laughed both the sooty wretches ;
and the diabolical sounds seemed, in truth, a not unapt expression
of the fiendish character which Legree gave them.