“Young Tom Ludlow, one of the scorers, comes up to me, arter master was gone, and says he, ‘Peter, why in the name of God don’t you show Morehouse the bottoms of your feet? I’d be hung afore I’d stand it.’ ‘Well, Tom,’ says I, ‘I wants to wait till I knows a little more of the world, and then I’ll show him the bottoms of my feet _with a greasein’_. Well, Tom laughed a good deal, and says he, ‘that’s _right_ Pete.’
“Tom was a great friend of mine, and he tried to get me to _run off_ for a good while, and Hen, his brother, he was a good feller, and he tried tu; and Miss _Sara_, their sister, she was a good soul, and every chance she got, she’d tell me to run; and Mrs. Ludlow always told me I was a fool for stayin’ with _sich a brute_; and every time I went there, I used to git a piece of somethin’ good to eat, that I didn’t get at home; and Mr. Humphrey’s folks was all the time a tryin’ to git me to run off. ‘Why,’ they say, ‘do you stay there to be beat, and whipt, and starved, and banged to death? why don’t you run?’ The reply I used to make was, wait till I git a leetle older, and I’ll clear the coop _for arnest_.
“Squire Whittlesey, that lived off, ’bout six miles, where I used to go on arrants, says to me one day, ‘Peter, where did you come from?’ So I ups and tells him all ’bout my history. Then says he, ‘Peter, can I put any confidence in you?’ ‘Yis, Sir,’ says I; ‘you needn’t be afeared of me.’ ‘Well,’ says he, ‘you’re free by law, and I advise you to run; but, wait a while, and don’t run till you can make sure work; and now mind you don’t go away and tell any body.’
“And, finally, enemost every body says ‘_run Pete_, why don’t you run?’ But thinks I to myself, if I run and don’t make out, ‘twould be better for me not to run at all, and so I’ll wait, and when I run I’ll run for sartin.
“There wasn’t many slaves in that region, but a good many colored folks lived there, and some on ’em was pretty decent folks tu. Well, we used to have some _‘musements_ as well as many _sad things_; for arter all Mr. L——, a’most any situation will let a body have some good things, for its a pretty hard thing to put out _all a body’s_ joys in God’s world; and then you see a slave enjoys a good many little kinda comforts that free people don’t think on; and if a time come when he can git away from his master, and forgit his troubles, why, he’s a good deal happier than common folks. Well, we used to have some very bright times. We had a Fox Tail Company out there of forty-seven men, and Hen Ludlow was captain, and old boss was lefttenant, and I was private, and when we catched a fox, then ’twas _hurrah boys_. Sometimes we used to have a good deal of ‘musements over there on Oneida Lake, and we used to have fine sport. We used to start on a kind of a _fishin’ scrape_, and come out on a kind of a _hunt_.