Martin Luther King Jr. Day Anthology | Page 4

O Lord! Oh, the
tears, an' the groans, an' the moans! O Lord!" I should have said that
she was accompanied by a little grandson of ten years,--the fattest,
jolliest woolly-headed little specimen of Africa that one can imagine.
He was grinning and showing his glistening white teeth in a state of
perpetual merriment, and at this moment broke out into an audible
giggle, which disturbed the reverie into which his relative was falling.
She looked at him with an indulgent sadness, and then at me. "Laws,
Ma'am, HE don't know nothin' about it--HE don't. Why, I've seen them
poor critters, beat an' 'bused an' hunted, brought in all torn,--ears
hangin' all in rags, where the dogs been a'bitin' of 'em!" This set off our
little African Puck into another giggle, in which he seemed perfectly
convulsed. She surveyed him soberly, without the slightest irritation.
"Well, you may bless the Lord you CAN laugh; but I tell you, 't wa'n't
no laughin' matter." By this time I thought her manner so original that it
might be worth while to call down my friends; and she seemed
perfectly well pleased with the idea. An audience was what she
wanted,--it mattered not whether high or low, learned or ignorant. She
had things to say, and was ready to say them at all times, and to any
one. I called down Dr. Beecher, Professor Allen, and two or three other
clergymen, who, together with my husband and family, made a roomful.
No princess could have received a drawing-room with more composed
dignity than Sojourner her audience. She stood among them, calm and
erect, as one of her own native palm-trees waving alone in the desert. I
presented one after another to her, and at last said,-- "Sojourner, this is
Dr. Beecher. He is a very celebrated preacher." "IS he?" she said,

offering her hand in a condescending manner, and looking down on his
white head. "Ye dear lamb, I'm glad to see ye! De Lord bless ye! I
loves preachers. I'm a kind o' preacher myself." "You are?" said Dr.
Beecher. "Do you preach from the Bible?" "No, honey, can't preach
from de Bible,--can't read a letter." "Why, Sojourner, what do you
preach from, then?" Her answer was given with a solemn power of
voice, peculiar to herself, that hushed every one in the room. "When I
preaches, I has jest one text to preach from, an' I always preaches from
this one. MY text is, 'WHEN I FOUND JESUS.'"
"Well, you couldn't have a better one," said one of the ministers. She
paid no attention to him, but stood and seemed swelling with her own
thoughts, and then began this narration:-- "Well, now, I'll jest have to
go back, an' tell ye all about it. Ye see, we was all brought over from
Africa, father an' mother an' I, an' a lot more of us; an' we was sold up
an' down, an' hither an' yon; an' I can 'member, when I was a little thing,
not bigger than this 'ere," pointing to her grandson, "how my ole
mammy would sit out o' doors in the evenin', an' look up at the stars an'
groan. She'd groan an' groan, an' says I to her,-- "'Mammy, what makes
you groan so?' "an' she'd say,-- "'Matter enough, chile! I'm groanin' to
think o' my poor children: they don't know where I be, an' I don't know
where they be; they looks up at the stars, an' I looks up at the stars, but
I can't tell where they be. "'Now,' she said, 'chile, when you're grown up,
you may be sold away from your mother an' all your ole friends, an'
have great troubles come on ye; an' when you has these troubles come
on ye, ye jes' go to God, an' He'll help ye.' "An' says I to her,-- "'Who is
God, anyhow, mammy?' "An' says she,-- "'Why, chile, you jes' look up
DAR! It's Him that made all DEM!" "Well, I didn't mind much 'bout
God in them days. I grew up pretty lively an' strong, an' could row a
boat, or ride a horse, or work round, an' do 'most anything. "At last I
got sold away to a real hard massa an' missis. Oh, I tell you, they WAS
hard! 'Peared like I couldn't please 'em, nohow. An' then I thought o'
what my old mammy told me about God; an' I thought I'd got into
trouble, sure enough, an' I wanted to find God, an' I heerd some one tell
a story about a man that met God on a threshin'-floor, an' I thought,
'Well an' good, I'll have a threshin'-floor, too.' So I went down in the lot,
an' I threshed down a place real hard, an' I used