IN a snug corner of a meager slave-cabin, on a low cot, lies a little babe asleep. A scarlet honeysuckle of wild and luxuriant growth shades the uncurtained and unsashed window; and the humming-birds, flitting among its brilliant blossoms, murmur a constant, gentle lullaby for the infant sleeper. See, its skin is not so dark but that we may clearly trace the blue veins underlying it; the lips, half parted, are lovely as a rosebud; and the soft, silky curls are dewy as the flowers on this June morning. A dimpled arm and one naked foot have escaped from the gay patch-work quilt, which some fond hand has closely tucked about the little form; and the breath comes and goes quickly, as if the folded eyes were feasting on visions of beauty and delight. Dear little one!
"We should see the spirits ringing
Round thee, were the clouds away;
'Tis the child-heart draws them, singing
In the silent-seeming clay."
Though that child-heart beats beneath a despised skin, though it has its resting-place in a hovel, the angels may be there. Their loving, pitying natures shrink not from poverty, but stoop with heavenly sympathy to the mean abodes of suffering and misery.
A soft step steals in through the half-opened door, across the room, and a fervent kiss is laid on the little velvet cheek.
Who is the intruder? Ah, who cares to watch and smile over a sleeping infant, save its mother? Here, in this rude cabin, is a mother's heart,—tender with its holy affections, and all aglow with delight, as she gazes on the beautiful vision before her.
We must call the mother Annie. She had but one name, for she was a slave. Like the horse or the dog, she must have some appellation by which, as an individual, she might be designated; a sort of appendage on which to hang, as it were, the commands, threats, and severities that from time to time might be administered; but farther than that, for her own personal uses, why did she need a name? She was not a person, only a thing,—a piece of property belonging to the Carroll estate.
But for all that, she was a woman and a mother. God had sealed her such, and who could obliterate his impress, or rob her of the crown he had placed about her head,—a crown of thorns though it were? Her heart was as full of all sweet motherly instincts as if she had been born in a more favored condition; and the swarthy complexion of her child made it no less dear or lovely in her sight; while a consciousness of its degradation and sad future served only to deepen and intensify her love. She knew what her child was born to suffer; but affection thrust far away the evil day, that she might not lose the happiness of the present. The babe was hers,—her own,—and for long years yet would be her joy and comfort.
Annie had other children, but they were wild, romping boys, grown out of their babyhood, and so very naturally left to run and take care of themselves. She had not ceased to love them, however, and would have manifested it more, but for the idol, the little girl baby, which had now for nearly a year nestled in her arms, and completely possessed her heart. When they were hungry, they came like chickens about her cabin-door, and being mistress of the kitchen, she always had plenty of good, substantial crumbs for them; and when they were sick, she nursed them with pitying care; but this was about all the attention they received.
The baby engrossed every leisure moment she could command. Many times a day she would pause in her work to caress it. She would seat it upon the floor, amid a perfect bed of honeysuckle blossoms, and bring the bright orange gourds that grew around the door for its amusement. Sometimes a broken toy or a shining trinket, which she had picked up in the house, or a smooth pebble from the yard, would be added to the treasures of the little one. Then she would come with food, the soft-boiled rice, or the sweet corn gruel, she knew so well how to prepare; and often, often she would steal in, as now, out of pure fondness, to watch its peaceful slumbers.
"Named the pickaninny yet?" asked the master one day, as he passed the cabin, and carelessly looked in upon the mother and child amusing themselves within. "'Tis time you did; 'most time to turn her off now, you see."
"Oh, Massa, don't say dat word," answered the woman, imploringly. "'Pears I couldn't b'ar to turn her off yet,—couldn't live without her, no ways. Reckon I'll call her Tidy; dat ar's my sister's name, and she's got dat same sweet look 'bout de eyes,—don't you think so, Massa? Poor Tidy! she's"—and Annie stopped, and a deep sigh, instead of words, filled up the sentence, and tears dropped down upon the baby's forehead. Memory traveled back to that dreadful night when this only sister had been dragged from her bed, chained with a slave-gang, and driven off to the dreaded South, never more to be heard from.
WE talk of the "sunny South;"—to the slave, the South is cold, dark, and cheerless; the land of untold horrors, the grave of hope and joy.
"'Pears as if my poor old mudder," said Annie, brushing away the tears, "never got up right smart after Tidy went away. She'd had six children sold from her afore, and she set stores by her and me, 'cause we was girls, and we was all she had left, too. Tidy was pooty as a flower; and dat's just what your fadder, Massa Carroll, sold her for. My poor mudder—how she cried and took on! but then she grew more settled like. She said she'd gi'n her up for de good Lord to take care on. She said, if he could take care of de posies in de woods, he certain sure would look after her, and so she left off groaning like; but she's never got over that sad look in her face. 'Oh,' says she to me, says she, 'Annie, do call dat leetle cretur's name Tidy,—mebbe 'twill make my poor, sore heart heal up;' and so I will."
"So I would, Annie; yes, so I would," said the Master soothingly. "So I would, if 'twill be any comfort to poor old Marcia,—clever old soul she is. She was my mammy, and I was always fond of her. She has trotted me on her knee, and toted me about on her back, many an hour. I must go down to the quarters this very day, and see if she has things comfortable. She's getting old, and we must do well by her in her old age. And you, Annie, you mustn't mind those other things. We mustn't borrow trouble. And we can't help it, you know; and we mustn't cry and fret for what we can't help. What's the use? It don't do any good, you see, and only makes a bad matter worse. Must take things as they come, in this world of ours, Annie;" and the Master thought thus to assuage the tide of bitter recollection in the breast of his down-trodden bond-woman, and divert her mind from the painful future before her and her darling child. In vain. The tears still fell over the brow of the baby, flowing from the deep fountain of sorrow and tenderness that springs forth only from a mother's heart.
"Oh, Massa," she ventured timidly to say amid her sobs, "please don't never part baby and me."
"Be a good girl, Annie," said he, "and mind your work, and don't be borrowing trouble. We'll take good care of you. You've got a nice baby, that's a fact,—the smartest little thing on the whole plantation; see how well you can raise her now."
The fond heart of the trembling mother leaped back again to its happiness at the praise bestowed upon her baby; and taking up the little blossom, she laid it with pride upon her bosom, murmuring, "Years of good times we'll have, sweety, afore sich dark days come,—mebbe they'll never come to you and me."
Alas, vain hope! Scarcely a single year had passed, when one day she came to the cot to look at the little sleeper, and lo, her treasure was gone! The master had found it convenient, in making a sale of some field hands, to THROW IN this infant, by way of closing a satisfactory bargain.
None can tell, but those who have gone through the trying experience, how hard it is for a mother to part with her child when God calls it away by death. But oh, how much harder it must be to have a babe torn away from the maternal arms by the stern hand of oppression, and flung out on the cruel tide of selfishness and passion! Let us weep, dear children, for the poor slave mothers who have to endure such wrongs.
I will not undertake to describe the distress of this poor woman when the knowledge of her loss burst upon her. It was as when the tall tree is shivered by the lightning's blast. Her strong frame shook and trembled beneath the shock; her eye rolled and burned in tearless anguish, and her voice failed her in the intensity of her grief. For hours she was unable to move. Alone, uncomforted, she lay upon the earth, crushed beneath the weight of this unexpected calamity.
"Leave her alone," said the master, "and let her grieve it out. The cat will mew when her kittens are taken away. She'll get over it before long, and come up again all right."
"Ye mus' b'ar it, chile," said Annie's poor, old mother, drawing from her own experience the only comfort which could be of any avail. "De bressed Lord will help ye; nobody else can. I's so sorry for ye, honey; but yer poor, old mudder can't do noffin. 'Tis de yoke de Heavenly Massa puts on yer neck, and ye can't take it off nohow till he ondoes it hissef wid his own hand. Ye mus' b'ar it, and say, De will ob de bressed Lord be done."
But, trying as this separation was, it proved to be the first link in that chain of loving-kindnesses by which this little slave-child was to be drawn towards God. Do you remember this verse in the Bible: "I have loved thee with an everlasting love; therefore with loving kindness have I drawn thee."
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