The remainder of my time I spent in riding along the river road on the
mare my grandfather had given me, or wandering over the estate and in and
out among the negro cabins. To the negroes I was always "Mas' Tom," and I
am proud to remember that I made many friends among them, treating them
always with justice and sometimes with mercy, as, indeed, I try yet to
do. Once I came suddenly upon old Gump, the major-domo of the house
servants, preparing to give a little pickaninny a thrashing, and I
stopped to ask what he had done.

"He's done been stealing Mas' Tom," answered Gump. "Ain' goin' t' hab no
t'iefs roun' dis yere house, not if I knows it."

"What did he steal, uncle?" I asked.

"Dis yere whip," said Gump, and he held up an old riding-whip of mine.

I looked at it and hesitated for a moment. Was it worth beating a child
for? The little beady eyes were gazing at me in an agony of supplication.

"Gump," I said, "don't beat him. That's all right. I want him to have
the whip."

Gump stared at me in astonishment.

"What, Mas' Tom," he exclaimed, "you mean dat you gib him de whip?"

"Yes," I said, "I give him the whip, Gump," and luckily the old man could
not distinguish between the past and present tenses of the verb, so that
I was spared a lie. The little thief ran away with the whip in his hand,
and it was long before the incident was recalled to me.