Minnies Sacrifice | Page 3

a
Negro being palmed upon society as a white person?"
"Negro! Pa, he is just as white as you are, and his eyes are as blue as
mine."
"Still he belongs to the Negro race; and one drop of that blood in his
veins curses all the rest. I would grant you anything in reason, but this
is not to be thought of. Were I to do so I would immediately lose caste
among all the planters in the neighborhood; I would be set down as an
Abolitionist, and singled out for insult and injury. Ask me anything,
Camilla, but that."
"Oh, Pa, what do you care about social position? You never hunt, nor
entertain company, nor take any part in politics. You shut yourself up
in your library, year after year, and pore over your musty books, and
hardly any one knows whether you are dead or alive. And I am sure
that we could hide the secret of his birth, and pass him off as the orphan
child of one of our friends, and that will be the truth; for Agnes was our
friend; at least I know she was mine."
"Well, I'll see about it; now, get down, and let me finish reading this
chapter."
The next day Camilla went again to the cabin of Miriam; but the
overseer had set her to a task in the field, and Agnes' baby was left to
the care of an aged woman who was too old to work in the fields, but
not being entirely past service, she was appointed as one of the nurses
for the babies and young children, while their mothers were working in
the fields.
Camilla, feeling an unusual interest in the child, went to the overseer,
and demanded that Miriam should be released from her tasks, and
permitted to attend the child.
In vain the overseer plead the pressure for hands, and the busy season.
Camilla said it did not matter, she wanted Miriam, and she would have
her; and he, feeling that it was to his interest to please the little lady,

had Miriam sent from the field to Camilla.
"Mammy, I want you to come to the house. I want you to come and be
my Mammy. Agnes is dead; your husband is gone, and I want you to
come and bring the baby to the house, and I am going to get him some
beautiful dresses, and some lovely coral I saw in New Orleans, and I
am going to dress him so handsomely, that I believe Pa will feel just as
I do, and think it a shame that such a beautiful child should be a slave."
Camilla went home, and told her father what she had done. And he,
willing to compromise with her, readily consented; and in a day or two
the child and his grandmother were comfortably ensconced in their new
quarters.
The winter passed; the weeks ripened into months, and the months into
years, and the child under the pleasant dispensations of love and
kindness grew to be a fine, healthy, and handsome boy.
One day, when Mr. Le Croix was in one of his most genial moods,
Camilla again introduced the subject which she had concealed, but not
abandoned.
"Now, father, I do think it is a shame for this child to be a slave, when
he is just as white as anybody; I am sure we could move away from
here to France, and you could adopt him as your son, and no one would
know anything of his birth and parentage. He is so beautiful, I would
like him for my brother; and he looks like us anyhow."
Le Croix flushed deep at these words, and he looked keenly into his
daughter's face; but her gaze was so open, her expression so frank and
artless, he could not think that her words had any covert meaning in
reference to the paternity of the child; but to save that child from being
a slave, and to hide his origin was with her a pet scheme; and, to use
her own words, "she had set her heart upon it."

Chapter II

Mr. Bernard Le Croix was the only son of a Spanish lady, and a French
gentleman, who were married in Hayti a few months before the
revolution, which gave freedom to the Island, and made Hayti an
independent nation.
His father, foreseeing the storm which was overshadowing the land,
contrived to escape, bringing with him a large amount of personal
property; and preferring a climate similar to his own, he bought a
plantation on Red river, and largely stocked it with slaves. Only one
child blessed their union; Bernard Le Croix, who grew up sensitive, shy
and retiring, with a taste for solitude and literary