Twelve Years a Slave by Solomon Northup

PERSONAL APPEARANCE OF EPPS--EPPS, DRUNK AND SOBER--A GLIMPSE OF HIS HISTORY--COTTON GROWING--THE MODE OF PLOUGHING AND PREPARING GROUND--OF PLANTING--OF HOEING, OF PICKING, OF TREATING RAW HANDS--THE DIFFERENCE IN COTTON PICKERS--PATSEY A REMARKABLE ONE--TASKED ACCORDING TO ABILITY--BEAUTY OF A COTTON FIELD--THE SLAVE'S LABORS--FEAR ON APPROACHING THE GIN-HOUSE--WEIGHING--"CHORES"--CABIN LIFE--THE CORN MILL--THE USES OF THE GOURD--FEAR OF OVERSLEEPING--FEAR CONTINUALLY--MODE OF CULTIVATING CORN--SWEET POTATOES--FERTILITY OF THE SOIL--FATTENING HOGS--PRESERVING BACON--RAISING CATTLE--SHOOTING-MATCHES--GARDEN PRODUCTS--FLOWERS AND VERDURE.

Edwin Epps, of whom much will be said during the remainder of this history, is a large, portly, heavy-bodied man with light hair, high cheek bones, and a Roman nose of extraordinary dimensions. He has blue eyes, a fair complexion, and is, as I should say, full six feet high. He has the sharp, inquisitive expression of a jockey. His manners are repulsive and coarse, and his language gives speedy and unequivocal evidence that he has never enjoyed the advantages of an education. He has the faculty of saying most provoking things, in that respect even excelling old Peter Tanner. At the time I came into his possession, Edwin Epps was fond of the bottle, his "sprees" sometimes extending over the space of two whole weeks. Latterly, however, he had reformed his habits, and when I left him, was as strict a specimen of temperance as could be found on Bayou Boeuf. When "in his cups," Master Epps was a roystering, blustering, noisy fellow, whose chief delight was in dancing with his "niggers," or lashing them about the yard with his long whip, just for the pleasure of hearing them screech and scream, as the great welts were planted on their backs. When sober, he was silent, reserved and cunning, not beating us indiscriminately, as in his drunken moments, but sending the end of his rawhide to some tender spot of a lagging slave, with a sly dexterity peculiar to himself.