I can now definitively say this was a lie. The girl, Ellen Campbell, is surely one of the most ill-behaved negro women I have ever encountered. Her demeanor and attitude is entirely inconsistent with that of what a slave's should be. She is neither eager to serve nor please. She asks many unintelligible and unnecessary questions, prolonging the time it takes her to begin a task I've assigned her. Even once she begins, she deliberately takes much longer than necessary, stalling the general operations of the boardinghouse. I often have to tell her to wash dishes or sheets a second or even third time.
I had already resolved to terminate her employment until tonight when she really sent me over the edge. I ordered her to take a serving tray from the kitchen to one of the rooms. The imbecile had not even walked three steps with the tray when she failed to properly operate her own two legs and sent the entire tray along with all it was holding straight to the ground. A culmination of her ongoing attempts to challenge my authority, this particular incident exhausted my already-dwindling patience such that I could no longer contain my contempt for this poor excuse of a helping girl. As soon as I heard the tray hit the kitchen floor, I turned around, grabbed the butcher knife on the counter and drove it into the girl's head as she bent over to pretend to salvage the food she'd just spoiled. It was not a cerebral reaction; only upon seeing her limp body lying next to the tray did I realize what had just transpired. Instantly I felt remorse for having irreparably destroyed property that did not belong to me, but thankfully I've accumulated the funds to pay her owner what little she was worth. Her mistress will earn more from this settlement than that pathetic Ellen could ever make in her lifetime.
(This is a journal entry from the boardinghouse keeper that killed Ellen Campbell. The story is briefly mentioned on page 10 of the first chapter in Tera Hunter's book.)
No comments:
Post a Comment