As hard as life was for me, I did not experience any personal cruelty to me. I got the usual whipping small boys got and the usual bad treatment from Aunt Katy. I was too young to work in the fields. So my work was mainly driving up cows, keeping the yard clean, and running small errands for my young mistress, Lucretia Auld. For some reason she took a special liking to me. She would sometimes give me small treatments of kindness, such as slipping me food when she realized how hungry I was. You can't imagine how much these small acts of kindness meant to a small slave boy like me. I also spent a lot of time playing with Master Daniel, the youngest of my master's children. This, I think, is the reason that my speech did not contain much of the accents of other slaves.