4

I was afraid of the other drivers, however, and I was afraid of Ace.  He drove me like a Simon Legree.  He ordered me to fight other drivers, and when I refused, he took the fights off my hands or avoided them as the case might require.  He flicked at my bare feet with his whip.  When we were delayed by taking on or discharging freight, he would try to corner me and throw me into the canal.  He made me do all the work of taking care of our bunks, and cuffed my ears whenever he got a chance.  He made me do his share as well as my own of the labor of cleaning the stables, and feeding and caring for the horses, sitting by and giving orders with a comical exaggeration of the manner of Captain Sproule.  In short, he was hazing me unmercifully—­as every one on the boat knew, though some of the things he did to me I do not think the captain would have permitted if he had known about them.

I was more miserable with the cruelty and tyranny of Ace than I had been at home; for this was a constant misery, night and day, and got worse every minute.  He ruled even what I ate and drank.  When I took anything at meal-times, I would first glance at him, and if he looked forbidding or shook his head, I did not eat the forbidden thing.  I knew on that voyage from Syracuse to Buffalo exactly what servitude means.  No slave was ever more systematically cruelized[1], no convict ever more brutishly abused—­unless his oppressor may have been more ingenious than Ace.  He took my coverlets at night.  He starved me by making me afraid to eat.  He worked, me as hard as the amount of labor permitted.  He committed abominable crimes against my privacy and the delicacy of my feelings—­and all the time I could not rebel.  I could only think of running away from the boat, and was nearly at the point of doing so, when he crowded me too far one day, and pushed me to the point of one of those frenzied revolts for which the Dutch are famous.

[1] The author insists that “cruelized” is the exact word to express his meaning, and will consent to no change.—­G.v.d.M.

A little girl peeking at me from an orchard beside the tow-path tossed me an apple—­a nice, red juicy apple.  I caught it, and put it in my pocket.  That evening we tied up at a landing and were delayed for an hour or so taking on freight.  I slipped into the stable to eat my apple, knowing that Ace would pound me if he learned that I had kept anything from him, whether he really wanted it or not.  Suddenly I grew sick with terror, as I saw him coming in at the door.  He saw what I was doing, and glared at me vengefully.  He actually turned white with rage at this breach of his authority, and came at me with set teeth and doubled fists.  “Give me that apple, damn yeh!” he cried.  “You sneakin’ skunk, you, I’ll larn ye to eat my apples!”

He snatched at the apple, and was too successful; for before he reached it I opened my hand in obedience to his onslaught; and the apple rolled in the manure and litter of the stable, and was soiled and befouled.