midnight
A great deal of this misery _ might _ be helped . Tom arrives at Legree 's plantation . How does he fare ? Sleeps on a little foul , dirty straw , jammed in with a lot of others ; has every night toward midnight enough corn to stay the stomach of one small chicken ; and is thrown into a most dreadful state of society -- men degraded , and women degraded . We will pass over scenes that a woman 's pen should never describe , and observe the saint-like perfection of Tom . He was , or considered himself , a missionary to the negroes , evidently liked his sufferings , and died , by choice , a martyr 's death . He made the most astonishing number of conversions in a short time , and of characters worse than history records .