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Updated: May 21, 2025
He had hardly stopped to breathe from day-dawn till moon-rise: he would not always have the friendly moonlight to help him. But now Little Lizay's basket was swinging. He listened to hear its weight with interest, but how unlike this was to the absorbed anxiety which she had felt for him! "Two hunderd an' 'leven thutty-six poun's behin'!" said Mr. Buck, smacking his lips as over some good thing.
Which was the way to the free North? In Virginia he would have known in what direction to set his face for Ohio, but here everything was new and strange. However, he had no occasion for a desperate movement that night. His basket weighed one hundred and seven, while Little Lizay's had fallen lower than ever before.
Soon after she went back to empty her sack. The baskets stood hazardously near Alston for Lizay's game, but with her back turned to him and the luxuriant cotton-stalks between she reckoned she might venture. One-third of her sack she threw into Alston's basket about five pounds. And thus the poor soul did during the day, giving a third of her gatherings to Alston.
Alston was not a refined gentleman, whose youth had been hedged from the coarse and degrading, whose good instincts had been cherished, whose faculties had been harmoniously trained. He was not a hero: he was not prepared to espouse to the death Little Lizay's cause to risk everything for the shrinking, helpless woman and for his own manhood to die rather than strike her.
Horton at home, having just finished his lunch. They were admitted at once to the dining-room, where the doctor sat picking his teeth. He had never seen Alston, as the new negroes had been bought by an agent. "Sarvant, moster!" Alston said humbly, but with dignity. "Howdy, moster?" was Little Lizay's more familiar salutation. "I's Als'on, one yer new boys from Ol' Virginny."
He raised his arm, with his heart beating hot and his manhood shrinking: he struck Little Lizay's bare shoulders. She had nerved herself, but the blow, after all, surprised her and made her start; and she had not quite recovered herself when the second blow fell, so that she winced again; but after that she stood like a statue. "Harder!" cried Mr. Buck after the first few lashes.
The next day nothing noticeable occurred in the lives of these two slaves, except that Alston's basket fell yet behind: Mr. Buck acknowledged it was a "hunderd, but a mighty tight squeeze," while Little Lizay's had gained three pounds on the last weight. "Yer saved six lashes ter-day, Little Lizay," Alston said. He was evidently glad for her, and her hungry heart was glad that he cared.
Besides this go-between pick-basket, there was at that end of the row nearest the ginhouse an immense basket, nearly as tall as a barrel, and of greater circumference, with a capacity for three hundred pounds. Alston's pick-basket stood beside Little Lizay's, and between his row and hers.
Had Alston courted her favor, she might have yielded it less readily, but he did not take easily to his new companions. Some called him proud: others reckoned he had left a sweetheart, a wife perhaps, in Virginia. Little Lizay's evident preference laid her open to the rude jokes and sneers of the other negroes in particular Big Sam, who was her suitor, and Edny Ann, who was fond of Alston.
Stealing from white folks the negroes regarded as a very trifling matter, since they, the slaves, had earned everything there was: but to steal from "a po' nigger" was the meanest thing in their decalogue. "Stealin' from her beau!" sneered one negro, commenting on Little Lizay's offence. "An' her sweet'art!" said another. "An' her 'tendin' like her lubbed 'im!"
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