310 HILLS AND LAKES 



leaped overboard, roaring for help, as if all the wild 

 animals and poisonous serpents of his native jungles 

 were after him. He could swim like a duck, and he 

 struck out for the shore, screaming with horror at 

 every pull. Upon reaching the shore, he broke like 

 a quarter horse for the house. My father, who was at 

 a short distance, hurried up to know the reason of the 

 outcry. " Massa!" cried Shadrach, in all the earnest- 

 ness of terror, " de lake is full of rattlesnakes !" " Get 

 out, you woolly-pated rhinoceros," replied my father ; 

 " who ever heard of rattlesnakes in the water ?" 

 " Golla ! massa !" replied the African, " he dere now, 

 sure." My father went out in another canoe, to^tlie 

 one in which Shadrach had been fishing, and upon 

 securing the pole, which was floating about, found 

 that Shadrach had hooked an enormous eel, a fish by 

 no means common in the lake. But Shadrach, regard- 

 ing it as belonging to the family of snakes, never 

 trusted himself alone after that on the water. 



"I've hearn a good deal lately, Squire," said 

 Tucker, after I had finished my story, " about slavery 

 and the Slave States, and I've read some tracts and 

 newspapers, that have been sent around to almost 

 everybody in these parts, on the subject. It seems to 



