key, "hushy-by-baby." Three other wretched children, in tow-linen dresses, whose brevity of skirts made a sad appeal to the modesty of spectators, were perched round this girl, whom they called Amy. They were furiously begging Aunt Polly (the cook) to give them a piece of hoe-cake.
"Be off wid you, or I'll tell Massa, or de overseer," answered the beldame, as their solicitations became more clamorous. This threat had power to silence the most earnest demands of the stomach, for the fiend of hunger was far less dreaded than the lash of Mr. Jones, the overseer. My entrance, and the sight of a strange face, was a diversion for them. They crowded closer to Amy, and eyed me with a half doubtful, and altogether ludicrous air.
"Who's her?" "whar she come from?" "when her gwyn away?" and such like expressions, escaped them, in stifled tones.
"Come in, set down," said Aunt Polly to me, and, turning to the group of children, she levelled a poker at them.
"Keep still dar, or I'll break your pates wid dis poker."
Instantly they cowered down beside Amy, still peeping over her shoulder, to get a better view of me. With a very uneasy feeling I seated myself upon the broken stool, to which Aunt Polly pointed. One of the boldest of the children came up to me, and, slyly touching my dress, said, "tag," then darted off to her hiding-place, with quite the air of a victress. Amy made queer grimaces at me. Every now and then placing her thumb to her nose, and gyrating her finger towards me, she would drawl out, "you ka-n-t kum it." All this was perfect jargon to me; for at home, though we had been but imperfectly protected by clothing from the vicissitudes of seasons, and though our fare was simple, coarse, and frugal, had we been kindly treated, and our manners trained into something like the softness of humanity. There, as regularly as the Sunday dawned, were we summoned to the house to hear the Bible read, and join (though at a respectful distance) with the family in prayer. But this I subsequently learned was an unusual practice in the neighborhood, and was attributed to the fact, that my master's wife had been born in the State of Massachusetts, where the people were crazy and fanatical enough to believe that "niggers" had souls, and were by God held to be responsible beings.
The loud blast of the horn was the signal for the "hands" to suspend their labor and come to breakfast. Two negro men and three women rushed in at the door, ravenous for their rations. I looked about for the table, but, seeing none, concluded it had yet to be arranged; for at home we always took our meals on a table. I was much surprised to see each one here take a slice of fat bacon and a pone of bread in his or her hand, and eat it standing.
"Well," said one man, "I'd like to git a bit more bread."
"You's had your sher," replied Aunt Polly. "Mister Jones ses one slice o' meat and a pone o' bread is to be the 'lowance."
"I knows it, but if thar's any scraps left from the house table, you wimmin folks always gits it."
"Who's got de bes' right? Sure, and arn't de one who cooks it got de bes' right to it?" asked Polly, with a triumphant voice.
"Ha, ha!" cried Nace, "here comes de breakfust leavin's, now who's smartest shall have 'em;" whereupon Nace, his comrade, and the three women, seized a waiter of fragments of biscuit, broiled ham, coffee, &c., the remains of the breakfast prepared for the white family.
"By gar," cried Nace, "I've got de coffee-pot, and I'll drink dis;" so, without further ceremony, he applied the spout to his mouth, and, sans cream or sugar, he quaffed off the grounds. Jake possessed himself of the ham, whilst the two women held a considerable contest over a biscuit. Blow and lie passed frequently between them. Aunt Polly brandished her skimmer-spoon, as though it were Neptune's trident of authority; still she could not allay the confusion which these excited cormorants raised. The children yelled out and clamored for a bit; the sight and scent of ham and biscuits so tantalized their palates, that they forgot even the terror of the whip. I stood all agape, looking on with amazement.
The two belligerent women stood with eyes blazing like comets, their arms twisted around each other in a very decided and furious rencontre. One of them, losing her balance, fell upon the floor, and, dragging the other after her, they rolled and wallowed in a cloud of dust, whilst the disputed biscuit, in the heat of the affray, had been dropped on the hearth, where, unperceived by the combatants, Nace had possessed himself of it, and was happily masticating it.
Melinda, the girl from whom the waiter had been snatched, doubtless much disappointed by the loss of the debris, returned to the house and made a report of the fracas.
Instantly and unexpectedly, Jones, flaming with rage, stood in the midst of the riotous group. Seizing hold of the women, he knocked them on their heads with his clenched fists.
"Hold, black wretches, come, I will give you a leetle fun; off now to the post."
Then such appeals for mercy, promises of amendment, entreaties, excuses, &c., as the two women made, would have touched a heart of stone; but Jones had power to resist even the prayers of an angel. To him the cries of human suffering and the agony of distress were music. My heart bled when I saw the two victims led away, and I put my hands to my ears to shut out the screams of distress which rang with a strange terror on the morning air. Poor, oppressed African! thorny and rugged is your path of life! Many a secret sigh and bleeding tear attest your cruel martyrdom! Surely He, who careth alike for the high and the low, looks not unmoved upon you, wearing and groaning beneath the pressing burden and galling yoke of a most inhuman bondage. For you there is no broad rock of Hope or Peace to cast its shadow of rest in this "weary land." You must sow in tears and reap in sorrow. But He, who led the children of Israel from the house of bondage and the fetters of captivity, will, in His own inscrutable way, lead you from the condition of despair, even by the pillar of fire and the cloud. Great changes are occurring daily, old constitutions are tottering, old systems, fraught with the cruelty of darker ages, are shaking to their centres. Master minds are everywhere actively engaged. Keen eyes and vigilant hearts are open to the wrongs of the poor, the lowly and the outcast. An avenging angel sits concealed 'mid the drapery of the wasting cloud, ready to pour the vials of God's wrath upon a haughty and oppressive race. In the threatened famine, see we nothing but an accidental failure of the crops? In the exhausted coffers and empty public treasury, is there nothing taught but the lesson of national extravagance? In the virulence of disease, the increasing prevalence of fatal epidemics, what do we read? Send for the seers, the wise men of the nation, and bid them translate the "mysterious writing on the wall." Ah, well may ye shake, Kings of Mammon, shake upon your tottering throne of human bones! Give o'er your sports, suspend your orgies, dash down the jewelled cup of unhallowed joy, sparkling as it is to the very brim. You must pay, like him of old, the fearful price of sin. God hath not heard, unmoved, the anguished cries of a down-trodden and enslaved nation! And it needs no Daniel to tell, that "God hath numbered your Kingdom and it is finished."
As may be supposed, I had little appetite for my breakfast, but I managed to deceive others into the belief that I had made a hearty meal. But those screams from half-famished wretches had a fatal and terrifying fascination; never once could I forget it.
A look of fright was on the face of all. "They be gettin' awful beatin' at the post," muttered Nace, whilst a sardonic smile flitted over his hard features. Was it not sad to behold the depths of degradation into which this creature had fallen? He could smile at the anguish of a fellow-creature. Originally, his nature may have been kind and gentle; but a continuous system of brutality had so deadened his sensibilities, that he had no humanity left. For this, the white man is accountable.
After the breakfast was over, I received a summons to the house. Following Melinda, I passed the door-sill, and stood in the presence of the assembled household. A very strange group I thought them. Two girls were seated beside the uncleared breakfast table, "trying their fortune" (as the phrase goes) with a cup of coffee-grounds and a spoon. The elder of the two was a tall, thin girl, with sharp features, small gray eyes, and red-hair done up in frizettes; the other was a prim, dark-skinned girl, with a set of nondescript features, and hair of no particular hue, or "just any color;" but with the same harsh expression of face that characterized the elder. As she received the magic cup from her sister, she exclaimed, "La, Jane, it will only be two years until you are married," and made a significant grimace at her father (Mr. Peterkin), who sat near the window, indulging