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308 TWELVE YEARS A SLAVE malicious tone of voice, "you needn't feel so cussed tickled--you ain't gone yet--I'll see about this busi- ness at Marksville to-morrow." I was only a "nigger" and knew my place, but felt as strongly as if I had been a white man that it would have been an inward comfort, had I dared to have given him a parting kick. On my way back to the carriage, Patsey ran from behind a cabin and threw her arms about my neck. "Oh? Platt," she cried, tears streaming down her face, "You're goin' to be free -- you're goin' way off yonder, where we'll nebber see ye any more. You've saved me a good many whippins, Platt; I'm glad you're goin' to be free -- but oh! de Lord, de Lord! what'll become of me? I disengaged myself from her, and entered the carriage. The driver cracked his whip and away we rolled. I looked back and saw Patsey, with drooping head, half reclining on the ground; Mrs. Epps was on the piazza; Uncle Abram, and Bob, and Wiley, and Aunt Phebe stood by the gate, gazing after me. I waved my hand, but the carriage turned a bend of the bayou, hiding them from my eyes forever. We stopped a moment at Carey's sugar house, where a great number of slaves were at work, such an establishment being a curiosity to a Northern man. Epps dashed by us on horseback at full speed -- on the way, as we learned next day, to the "Pine Woods," to see William Ford, who had brought me into the country.