Minnies Sacrifice | Page 8

day and set up till twelve or one o'clock at night and work for
you, but please don't take me from my husban'. An' what do you think
ole Missus did? Why she jist up wid her foot and kicked Nancy in de
mouf, and knocked out two of her teef. I seed her do it wid my own
blessed eyes. An' I sed to myself de debil will never git his own till he
gits you. Well she did worry dat pore cretur almost to death. She used
to make her sleep in the room wid her chillen, and locked de door ebery
night, and Sundays she'd lebe some one to watch her, she was so fraid
she'd git to see her husban'. An' dis Miss Georgiette is de very moral of
her Ma, and she's jist as big as a spitfire."
"Hush," said Milly, "here comes Jane. Don't say no more 'bout Missus,
cause she's real white people's nigger, and tells all she knows, and what
she don't."

Chapter IV
"I am really sorry, Ellen, but I can't help it. Georgiette has taken a
dislike to the child, and there is no living in peace with her unless I sell
the child or take it away."
"Oh! Mr. St. Pierre, you would not sell that child when it is your own
flesh and blood?" Le Grange winced under these words.
"No, Ellen, I'll never consent to sell the child, but it won't do for her to
stay here. I've made up my mind to send her North, and have her
educated."
"And then I'll never see my darling any more."
"But, Ellen, that is better than having her here to be knocked around by
Georgiette, and if I die to be sold as a slave. It is the best thing I can
do,--hang old Mrs. Le Fevre's tongue; but I guess it would have come
out some time or the other. I just tell you what I'll do, Ellen. I'll take the
child down to New Orleans, and make out to Georgiette that I am going
to sell her, but instead of that, I'll get a friend of mine who is going to
Pennsylvania to take her with him, and have her boarded there, and
educated. Nobody need know anything about her being colored. I'd
send you both, Ellen, but, to tell you the truth, the plantation is running
down, and the crops are so short this year I can't afford it; but when
times get better, I'll send you up there and tell you where you can find
her."
"Well, Mr. St. Pierre, that is better than having Missus knocking her
around or selling her to one of those old mean nigger traders, and never
having a chance to see my darling no more. But, Mr. St. Pierre, before
you take her away won't you please give me her likeness? Maybe I
won't know her when I see her again."
Le Grange consented, and when he went to the city again he told his
wife he was going to sell the child.

"I am glad of it," said Georgiette. "I would have her mother sold, but
we can't spare her; she is so handy with her needle, and does all the
cutting out on the place."

Le Grange's Plan
"The whole fact is this Joe, I am in an awkward fix. I have got myself
into a scrape, and I want you to help me out of it. You were good at
such things when we were at College, and I want you to try your hand
again."
"Well, what's the difficulty now?"
"Well, it is rather a serious one. I have got a child on my hands, and I
don't know what to do with it."
"Whose child is it?"
"Now, that's just where the difficulty lies. It is the child of one of my
girls, but it looks so much like me, that my wife don't want it on the
place. I am too hard up just now to take the child and her mother, North,
and take care of them there. And to tell you the truth I am too humane
to have the child sold here as a slave. Now in a word do you think that
among your Abolitionist friends in the North you could find any one
who would raise the child and bring it up like a white child."
"I don't know about that St. Pierre. There are a number of our people in
the North, who do two things. They hate slavery and hate negroes.
They feel like the woman who in writing to her husband said, they say
(or don't say) that absence conquers love; for the longer you stay away
the better I love you. But then I