on the upper deck, in a little nook among the everywhere
predominant cotton-bales, at last we may find him.

Partly from confidence inspired by Mr. Shelby's repre-
sentations, and partly from the remarkably inoffensive and
quiet character of the man, Tom had insensibly won his
way far into the confidence even of such a man as Haley.

At first he had watched him narrowly through the day,
and never allowed him to sleep at night unfettered; but
the uncomplaining patience and apparent contentment of
Tom's manner led him gradually to discontinue these re-
straints, and for some time Tom had enjoyed a sort of pa-
role of honor, being permitted to come and go freely where
he pleased on the boat.

Ever quiet and obliging, and more than ready to lend a
hand in every emergency which occurred among the work-
men below, he had won the good opinion of all the hands,
and spent many hours in helping them with as hearty a
good-will as ever he worked on a Kentucky farm.

When there seemed to be nothing for him to do, he would
climb to a nook among the cotton-bales of the upper deck,
and busy himself in studying over his Bible, -- and it is
there we see him now.

For a hundred or more miles above New Orleans, the river
is higher than the surrounding country, and rolls its tre-
mendous volume between massive levees twenty feet in
height. The traveller from the deck of the steamer, as from
some floating castle top, overlooks the whole country for
miles and miles around. Tom, therefore, had spread out
full before him, in plantation after plantation, a map of the
life to which he was approaching.

He saw the distant slaves at their toil; he saw afar their
villages of huts gleaming out in long rows on many a plan-
tation, distant from the stately mansions and pleasure-
grounds of the master; -- and as the moving picture passed
on, his poor, foolish heart would be turning backward to the
Kentucky farm, with its old shadowy beeches, -- to the mas-
ter's house, with its wide, cool halls, and, near by, the little
cabin, overgrown with the multiflora and bignonia. There
he seemed to see familiar faces of comrades, who had grown
up with him from infancy; he saw his busy wife, bustling
in her preparations for his evening meal; he heard the
merry laugh of his boys at their play, and the chirrup of the

-159-