Minnies Sacrifice | Page 6

a very nice lady, and he hoped to see her when he
went to New Orleans. Pa, I wonder how slavery came to be. I should
hate to belong to anybody, wouldn't you, Pa?"
"Why, yes, darling, but then the negroes are contented, and wouldn't
take their freedom, if you would give it to them."
"I don't know about that, Pa; there was Mr. Le Grange's Peter. Mr. Le
Grange used to dress him so fine and treat him so well that he thought
no one would ever tempt Peter to leave him; and he came North with
him every year for three or four summers, and he always made out that
he was afraid of the abolitionists--bobolitionists he used to call
them--and Mr. Le Grange just believed that Peter was in earnest, and
somehow he got Mrs. Le Grange to bring his wife North to wait on her.
And when they both got here, they both left; and Mrs. Le Grange had to
wait on herself, until she got another servant. She told me she had got
enough of the North, and never wanted to see it again so long as she
lived; that she wouldn't have taken three thousand dollars for them."
"Well, darling, they would have never left, if these meddlesome
abolitionists hadn't put it in their heads; but, darling, don't bother your
brain about such matters. See what I have bought you this morning,"
said he, handing her a necklace of the purest pearls; "here, darling, is a
birth-day present for you." Camilla took the necklace, and gazing
absently upon it said, "I can't understand it."
"What is it, my little philosopher, that you can't understand?"
"Pa, I can't understand slavery; that man made me think it was
something very bad. Do you think it can be right?"

Le Croix's face flushed suddenly, and he bit his lip, but said nothing,
and commenced reading the paper.
"Why don't you answer me, Pa?" Le Croix's brow grew darker, but he
tried to conceal his vexation, and quietly said, "Darling, never mind.
Don't puzzle your little head about matters you cannot understand, and
which our wisest statesmen cannot solve."
Camilla said no more, but a new train of thought had been awakened.
She had lived so much among the slaves, and had heard so many tales
of sorrow breathed confidentially into her ears, that she had
unconsciously imbibed their view of the matter; and without
comprehending the injustice of the system, she had learned to view it
from their standpoint of observation.
What she had seen of slavery in the South had awakened her sympathy
and compassion. What she had heard of it in the North had aroused her
sense of justice. She had seen the old system under a new light. The
good seed was planted, which was yet to yield its harvest of blessed
deeds.

Chapter III
"What is the matter?" said St. Pierre Le Grange, as he entered suddenly
the sitting-room of his wife, Georgietta Le Grange, and saw her cutting
off the curls from the head of little girl about five years old, the child of
a favorite slave.
"Matter enough!" said the angry wife, her cheeks red with excitement
and her eyes half blinded with tears of vexation. "This child shan't stay
here; and if she does, she shall never again be taken for mine."
"Who took her for yours? What has happened that has brought about all
this excitement?"
"Just wait a minute," said Georgietta, trying to frame her excitement

into words.
"Yesterday I invited the Le Fevres and the Le Counts, and a Northern
lady they had stopping with Mrs. Le Fevre, to dine with us. To-day I
told Ellen to have the servants all cleaned up, and looking as well as
possible; and so I distributed around more than a dozen turbans, for I
wanted Mrs. King to see how much better and happier our negroes
looked here than they do when they are free in the North, and what
should Ellen do but dress up her little minx in her best clothes, and curl
her hair and let her run around in the front yard."
"So she overdid the thing," said Le Grange, beginning to comprehend
the trouble.
"Yes, she did, but she will never do it again," exclaimed Mrs. Le
Grange, her dark eyes flashing defiantly.
Le Grange bit his lip, but said nothing. He saw the storm that was
brewing, and about to fall on the head of the hapless child and mother,
and thought that he would do nothing to increase it.
"When Mrs. Le Fevre," continued Georgietta, "alighted from the
carriage, she noticed the child, and calling the attention of the whole
party to her, said, 'Oh, how beautiful she is! The very image of her