He evaded the blow and turned fiercely round with his hoe uplifted, threatening to cut down any one who again attempted to strike him.

Huckstep cursed my awkwardness, and told Harry to put down his hoe and came to him.

He refused to do so and swore he would kill the first man who tried to lay hands on him.

The cowardly tyrant shrank away from his enraged bondman, and for two weeks Harry was not again molested.
About the first of September, the overseer had one of his drunken fits.
He made the house literally an earthly hell.

He urged me to drink, quarrelled and swore at me for declining, and chased the old woman round the house, with his bottle of peach brandy.