"What's the matter with him, Ephraim?" queried the old soldier. "He looks to me as though he hadn't had enough to eat."
"It isn't only that, Massa," said the negro, "he's been whipped 'most to death."
"Whipped!" cried Hamilton, startled. Then, remembering suddenly that the matter was not his concern, he flushed and turned to the Colonel.
"I beg your pardon, sir," he said, "I forgot."
The old soldier, who had been a stern disciplinarian in his time, had drawn himself up indignantly at the boy's interruption, but his immediate apology caused the old gentleman to see that it was just a flash of boyish indignation, so he merely turned and said:
"Ah was born hyar durin' the war," the negro began. "Ah c'n jes' remember Missis, an' Ah've often heard mah mother cry when we was livin' in Atlanta an' trouble come, 'If only Ah could go to Missis.'"
"Get to your story, boy," said the Colonel, "I haven't time to waste."
"Ah was brought up in Atlanta, Georgia, an' times was always hard. Six years ago Ah hired out to a lumber man in Florida. Thar were sixty of us hired together. The pay was good. The day we come, we were put into a group o' huts with a stockade 'roun', an' men with rifles guarded us night an' day. Ah reckon thirty men was shot tryin' to escape durin' the years I was thar."
"Yas, sah, leastways I know of five, an' heard o' the rest."
"Talk about what you know, not what you've heard," admonished the old soldier. "Go on."
"It was killin' work. We had to be in the woods by daylight an' stay thar until it was too dark to see. Thar was trouble enough at first but the worst come later. About three years ago a lot mo' huts was put up an' the stockade was made bigger. We thought things would be easier as the new men would get all the knockin' about. Nex' week the new crowd came,--they were convic's hired for the job."
"Excuse my interrupting, Colonel Egerius," asked the lad, "but can that be true? Does any State hire out its convicts to forced labor?"
"Some do," was the reply, "and Florida is one of them. Go on, boy."
"Floggin's started in when the convicts come, an' thar was no difference made between us an' them. We were supposed to be paid, but our pay was always in tickets to the comp'ny store, an' they charged double prices for everythin'. They never gave us a cent o' money. A lot of us got together an' decided to escape, but when it come to doin' it, only three would go. One got away entirely, one was shot, an' Ah was caught. They took me to the stockade an' whipped me 'mos' to death, three days runnin'. The third day Ah was so near dead that they didn't tie me up, an' when, hours later, Ah did stagger to mah feet, they jes' pointed to the fields whar the hands was workin'. Ah heard one o' the guards say, 'He won't go far,' an' Ah hid in the woods, Ah don' know how long, jes' livin' on berries, an' at las' Ah got away. Ah knew Ah would be safe in Kentucky."