Martin Luther King Jr. Day Anthology | Page 4

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 to go down there every day, an' pray an' cry with all my might, a-prayin' to the Lord to make my massa an' missis better, but it didn't seem to do no good; an' so says I, one day,-- "'O God, I been a-askin' ye, an' askin' ye, an' askin' ye, for all this long time, to make my massa an' missis better, an' you don't do it, an'