A Childs Anti-Slavery Book | Page 7

in wonderingly at their own mother, who was so changed
that they hardly knew her. Then they went off behind the kitchen to talk
about it, and cry over it.
The strange big negro was Jerry, who belonged to the same master with
Nancy, and he had come to bring her down. He was afraid that his
master would be very angry if he should go back without her; but the

doctor said the woman must not be moved for a week, and he wrote a
letter for Jerry to carry borne to his master, while Nancy remained.
The next day, as they gained a little more courage, the brothers crept
inside of the cabin. Their mother saw them, and beckoned them to her
bed-side. She could scarcely speak a word distinctly, but taking first
one and then the other by the hand, she said inquiringly: "Lewis?"
"Lewis?" "Ned?"
They sat there at the bed-side by the hour that day. Sometimes she
would hold their hands lovingly in hers; then again she would lay her
hand gently on the heads of one and the other, and her eyes would
wander lovingly over their faces, and then fill with tears.
After a day or two little restless, fun-loving Ned grew tired of this, and
ran out to play; but Lewis stayed by his mother, and she was soon able
to talk with him.
She showed him her wrists where they had been worn by the irons, and
her back scarred by the whip, and she told him of cruelties that we may
not repeat here. She talked with him as if he were a man, and not a
child; and as he listened his heart and mind seemed to reach forward,
and he became almost a man in thought. He seemed to live whole years
in those few days that he talked with his mother. It was here that the
fearful fact dawned upon him as it never had before. He was a slave!
He had no control over his own person or actions, but he belonged soul
and body to another man, who had power to control him in everything.
And this would not have been so irksome had it been a person that he
loved, but Master Stamford he hated. He never met him but to be called
by some foul epithet, or booted out of the way. He had no choice whom
he would serve, and there would be no end to the thankless servitude
but death.
"Mother," said the boy, "what have we done that we should be treated
so much worse than other people?"
"Nothing, my child, nothing. They say there is a God who has ordered
all this, but I don't know about that." She stopped; her mother's heart

forbade her to teach her child infidel principles, and she went on in a
better strain of reasoning. "Perhaps he allows all this, to try if we will
be good whether or no; but I am sure he cannot be pleased with the
white folk's cruelty toward us, and they'll all have to suffer for it some
day."
Then there was a long pause, when both mother and son seemed to be
thinking sad, sad thoughts. Finally the mother broke the silence by
saying: "Well, here we are, and the great question is how to make the
best of it, if there is any best about it."
"I know what I'll do, mother," said Lewis earnestly, "I'll run away when
I'm old enough."
"I hope you may get out of this terrible bondage, my child," said the
mother; "but you had better keep that matter to yourself at present. It
will be a long time before you are old enough. There is one thing about
it, if you're going to be a free man, you'll want to know how to read."
Lewis's heart was full again, and he told his mother the whole story of
the primer.
"And did Missy Katy never ask about it afterward?" inquired the
mother.
"No, she never has said a word about it."
"O well, she don't care. There are some young missies with tender
hearts that do take a good deal of pains to teach poor slaves to read; but
she isn't so, nor any of massa's family, if he is a minister. He don't care
any more about us than he does about his horses. You musn't wait for
any of them; but there's Sam Tyler down to Massa Pond's, he can read,
and if you can get him to show you some, without letting massa know
it, that'll help you, and then you must try by yourself as hard as you
can."
Thus did the poor slave mother talk with her child, trying to implant in
his heart an early