I had known what it was to experience kind, and even tender treatment; they had known nothing of the sort.

Life, to them, had been rough and thorny, as well as dark.

They had--most of them--lived on my old master's farm in Tuckahoe, and had felt the reign of Mr.Plummer's rule.

The overseer had written his character on the living parchment of most of their backs, and left them callous; my back (thanks to my early removal from the plantation to Baltimore) was yet tender.

I had left a kind mistress{139} at Baltimore, who was almost a mother to me.