that showed him even an occasional kindness. She was, withal, a frolicsome, romping witch, and as he turned the corner, she came scampering along right toward him with three or four white children at her heels, and all the little woolly heads of the establishment, numbering something less than a score.
"Here, Lew!" she said, as she came in sight, "you take the tag and run."
With a quick movement he touched her outstretched hand, and he would have made the others some trouble to catch him, for he was the smartest runner among the children; but as he turned he tripped on a stone, and lay sprawling. "Tag," cried Hal, Katy's cousin, as he placed his feet on the little fellow's back and jumped over him. It was cruel, but what did Hal care for the "little nigger." If he had been at home he would have had some little fear of breaking the child's back, for his father was more careful of his property than Uncle Stamford was.
Before Lewis could rise, two or three of the negro boys, who were always too ready to imitate the vices of their masters, had made the boy a stepping stone, and then Dick, his master's eldest son, came down upon him with both knees, and began to cuff him roundly.
"So, you black scamp, you thought you'd run away with the tag, did you!" Just then he perceived the primer that was peeping out of Lewis's shirt bosom. "Ha! what's here?" said he; "a primer, as I live! And what are you doing with this, I'd like to know?"
"Missy Katy give it to me, and she is teaching me my letters out of it. Please, massa, let me have it again," said he, beseechingly, as Dick made a motion as if to throw it away. "I would like to learn how to read."
"You would, would you!" said Dick. "You'd like to read to Tom and Sam, down on a Louisiana plantation, in sugar time, when you'd nothing else to do, I suppose. Ha, ha, ha!" and the young tyrant, giving the boy a vigorous kick or two as he rose, stuffed the book into his own pocket, and walked off.
Poor Lewis! He very well knew the meaning of that taunt, and he did not open his mouth. No threat of a dark closet ever frightened a free child so much as the threat of being sold to a Southern plantation terrifies the slave-child of Kentucky.
Lewis walked slowly toward the kitchen, to see Aunt Sally. It was to her he used to go with all his troubles, and sometimes she scolded, and sometimes she listened. She was very busy dressing the vegetables for dinner, and she looked cross; so the little fellow crept into the chimney corner and said nothing; but he thought all the more, and as he thought, the sad tears rolled down his tawny cheeks.
"What is the matter now, little baby?" was Aunt Sally's tender inquiry.
Lewis commenced his pitiful tale; but as soon as Aunt Sally heard that it was about learning to read, she shut him up with "Good enough for you! What do you want of a book? Readin' isn't for the likes of you; and the less you know of it the better."
This was poor sympathy, and the little fellow, with a half-spiteful feeling, scrambled upon a bench near by, and tumbled out of the window. He alighted on an ash-heap, not a very nice place to be sure, but it was a retired corner, and he often hid away there when he felt sad and wanted to be alone. Here he sat down, and leaning his head against the side of the house, he groaned out, "My mother, O my mother! If you ain't dead, why don't you come to me?"
By degrees he calmed down, and half asleep there in the sunshine, he dreamed of the home that he once had. His mother was a noble woman, so he thought. Nobody else ever looked so kindly into his face; he was sure nobody else ever loved him as she did, and he remembered when she was gay and cheerful, and would go all day singing about her work. And his father, he could just remember him as a very pleasant man that he used to run to meet, sometimes, when he saw him coming home away down the road; but that was long ago. He had not seen him now for years, and he had heard his mother say that his father's master had moved away out of the state and taken him with him, and maybe he would never return. Then Lewis's mother grew sad, and stopped her singing, though she worked as hard as ever, and kept her children all neat and clean.
And those dear brothers and sisters, what had become of them? There was Tom, the eldest, the very best fellow in the world, so Lewis thought. He would sit by the half hour making tops, and whistles, and all sorts of pretty playthings. And Sam, too! he was always so full of fun and singing songs. What a singer he was! and it was right cheerful when Sam would borrow some neighbor's banjo and play to them. But they were all gone; and his sad, sweet-faced, lady-like sister Nelly, too, they were all taken off in one day by one of the ugliest negro-drivers that ever scared a little slave-boy's dreams. And it was while his mother was away from home too. How she did cry and take on when she came back and found them all gone, and she hadn't even the chance to bid them good-by! She said she knew her master sent her off that morning because he was going to sell her children.
Lewis shuddered as he thought of that dreadful night. It was hardly two years ago, and the fearful things he heard then burned into his soul with terrible distinctness. It seemed as if their little cabin was deserted after that, for Tom, and Sam, and Nelly were almost grown up, and the rest were all little ones. The next winter his other sister, Fanny, died; but that wasn't half so sad. She was about twelve years old, and a blithesome, cheerful creature, just as her mother had been. He remembered how his master came to their cabin to comfort them, as he said; but his mother told him plainly that she did not want any such comfort. She wished Nelly was dead too. She wished she had never had any children to grow up and suffer what she had. It was in vain her master tried to soothe her. He talked like a minister, as he was; but she had grown almost raving, and she talked to him as she never dared to do before. She wanted to know why he didn't come to console her when she lost her other children; "three all at once" she said, "and they're ten times worse than dead. You never consoled me then at all. Religion? Pooh! I don't want none of your religion."
And now she, too, was gone. She had been gone more than a year. It was said that she was hired out to work in another family; but it wasn't so. They only told her that story to get her away from the children peaceably. She was sold quite a distance away to a very bad man, who used her cruelly.
Ned, who was some two years younger than Lewis, and the only brother he had left, was a wild, careless boy, who raced about among the other children, and did not seem to think much about anything. Lewis often wished he could have somebody to talk with, and he wondered if his mother would ever come back again.
Had he been a poet he might have put his wishes into verses like the following, in which Mrs. Follen has given beautiful expression to the wishes of such a slave boy as Lewis:
I wish I was that little bird,
Up in the bright blue sky,
That sings and flies just where he will,
And no one asks him why.
I wish I was that little brook,
That runs so swift along,
Through pretty flowers and shining stones,
Singing a merry song.
I wish I was that butterfly,
Without a thought or care,
Sporting my pretty, brilliant wings,
Like a flower in the air.
I wish I was that wild, wild deer,
I saw the other day,
Who swifter than an arrow flew,
Through the forest far away.
I wish I was that little cloud,
By the gentle south wind driven,
Floating along so free and bright,
Far, far up into heaven.
I'd rather be a cunning fox,
And hide me in a cave;
I'd rather be a savage wolf,
Than what