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butter and 2306 tons of hay, were the principal additional items in the list.
So far
Mr. Gradgrind.
A Free colored farmer.
The first person I met, after crossing the line, was a hearty old man of color, who was engaged in repairing his neighbor's fence.
Yankee-like, the first sentence I uttered, on seeing him, was an interrogation.
I asked him the price of land.
lie said that a neighbor had recently bought a farm, adjoining his place, for $26 an acre.
He would n't swap his even, no how, either as buyer or seller.
If I wanted to buy, however, lie would sell me his farm, of one hundred and fifty acres of excellent land, for $20 an acre.
I asked him if lie was a free man, and why he wanted to sell.
He said — Yes, he was a free man. His father was one of nine hundred and ninety-nine slaves, once the property of
Mr. Carter, who liberated every one of them, and secured to them the right to remain in the county.
Slaves who are freed now, lie added, have to leave the
State, or go to
Washington and remain there a year to get their papers.
His wife was there now. Her year was almost out, and he intended to go after her as soon as it expired.
I asked if she was a slave, or had he bought her. lie said she had been a slave, but her master freed her by his will.
The master was an old bachelor — never married — but had a lot of children by a black woman.
His wife was one of these children.
He offered him five hundred dollars for her when she was quite young, but he said he would never sell her — he knew what stock she came from — but would
