"Meantime, Haley, if you want the matter carried on in the quiet way
you speak of, you'd best not let your business in this neighborhood be
known. It will get out among my boys, and it will not be a particularly
quiet business getting away any of my fellows, if they know it, I'll
promise you."

"O! certainly, by all means, mum! of course. But I'll tell you. I'm in
a devil of a hurry, and shall want to know, as soon as possible, what I
may depend on," said he, rising and putting on his overcoat.

"Well, call up this evening, between six and seven, and you shall have
my answer," said Mr. Shelby, and the trader bowed himself out of the
apartment.

"I'd like to have been able to kick the fellow down the steps," said
he to himself, as he saw the door fairly closed, "with his impudent
assurance; but he knows how much he has me at advantage. If anybody
had ever said to me that I should sell Tom down south to one of those
rascally traders, I should have said, 'Is thy servant a dog, that
he should do this thing?' And now it must come, for aught I see. And
Eliza's child, too! I know that I shall have some fuss with wife
about that; and, for that matter, about Tom, too. So much for being in
debt,--heigho! The fellow sees his advantage, and means to push it."

Perhaps the mildest form of the system of slavery is to be seen in the
State of Kentucky. The general prevalence of agricultural pursuits of a
quiet and gradual nature, not requiring those periodic seasons of
hurry and pressure that are called for in the business of more southern
districts, makes the task of the negro a more healthful and reasonable
one; while the master, content with a more gradual style of acquisition,