But the others said, don't do
it, it wouldn't answer at all; he ain't our nigger, and his owner would
turn up and make us pay for him, sure. So that cooled them down a
little, because the people that's always the most anxious for to hang a
nigger that hain't done just right is always the very ones that ain't the
most anxious to pay for him when they've got their satisfaction out of
him.
They cussed Jim considerble, though, and give him a cuff or two side the
head once in a while, but Jim never said nothing, and he never let on to
know me, and they took him to the same cabin, and put his own clothes on
him, and chained him again, and not to no bed-leg this time, but to a big
staple drove into the bottom log, and chained his hands, too, and both
legs, and said he warn't to have nothing but bread and water to eat after
this till his owner come, or he was sold at auction because he didn't
come in a certain length of time, and filled up our hole, and said a
couple of farmers with guns must stand watch around about the cabin every
night, and a bulldog tied to the door in the daytime; and about this time
they was through with the job and was tapering off with a kind of generl
good-bye cussing, and then the old doctor comes and takes a look, and
says:
"Don't be no rougher on him than you're obleeged to, because he ain't a
bad nigger.
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