A Child's Anti-Slavery Book

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 I am—a slave.

My mother calls me her good boy,
My father calls me brave;
What wicked action have I done,
That I should be a slave?

I saw my little sister sold,
So will they do to me;
My heavenly Father, let me die,
For then I shall be free.

So talking to himself he fell into a doze, and dreamed about his mother. He thought her large serious eyes were looking into his, and her long black hair falling over his face. His mother was part Indian and part white, with only just enough of the black to make her hair a little curly. It don't make much difference what color people are in the slave states. If the mothers are slaves the children are slaves too, even if they are nine-tenths white.

From this pleasant dream Lewis was roused by a splash of cold water, and Aunt Sally, with her head out of the window, was calling, "Here you lazy nigger! come here and grind this coffee for me." And the little boy awoke to find himself a friendless orphan, in a cold world with a cruel master.

The next morning Lewis was playing about the yard with as good a will as any of the young negroes. Children's troubles don't last long, and to see him turning somersets, singing Jim Crow, and kicking up a row generally, you would suppose he had forgotten all about the lost primer and his mother too.

He was in the greatest possible glee in the afternoon, at being sent with another boy, Jim, to carry a package to Mr. Pond's. Then he was trusted, so he put himself on his dignity, and did not turn more than twenty somersets on the way. In coming back, as they had no package to carry, they took it into their heads to cut across lots, though it was no nearer than the road. Still it made them plenty of exercise in climbing fences and walking log bridges across the brooks. While doing this they came in sight of some white pond-lilies, and all at once it occurred to Lewis that it would be right nice to get some of them for Miss Katy, to buy up her good-will, for he was afraid she would be very angry when she found that he had lost the primer. So he waded and paddled about till he had collected quite a handful of them, in spite of Jim's hurrying up, and telling him that he would get his head broke, for missus had told them to be quick.

When he had gathered a large handful he started on the run for home, stopping only once or twice to admire the fragrant, lovely flowers; and he felt their beauty quite as much, I dare say, as Miss Katy would.

When they were passing the quarters, as the place is called where the huts of the slaves are built, Aunt Sally put her head out of the cabin door, and seeing him, she called out, "Here, Lew, here's your mother."

The boy forgot his lilies, dropped them, and running to the door, he saw within a strange woman sitting on a bench. Was that his mother? She turned her large dark eyes for a moment upon him, and then she sprang to meet him. His little heart was ready to overflow with tears of joy, and he expected to be overwhelmed with caresses, just as you would if you should meet your mother after being separated from her more than a year.

Imagine his terror, then, as she seized him rudely by the wrists and exclaimed, "It's you, is it? a little slave boy! I'll fix you so they'll never get you!"

Then she picked him up in her arms and started to run with him, as if she would throw him into the well. The little fellow screamed with fright. Aunt Sally ran after her, crying at the top of her voice, "Nancy, O Nancy! don't now!" And then a big negro darted out of the stables, crying "Stop her there! catch her!"

All this hubbub roused the people at the house, and Master Stamford forthwith appeared on the verandah, with a crowd of servants of all sizes. Amid the orders, and cries, and general confusion that followed, Nancy was caught, Lewis was taken away, and she was carried back to the cabin, while the big negro was preparing to tie her. As she entered the cabin, her eye caught sight of a knife that lay there, and snatching it up, she gave herself a bad wound with it. Poor woman, she was tired of her miserable life. I don't wonder that she wanted to die.

Was it right, you ask, for her to take her own life? Certainly not. But let us see what led to this attempt.

For a long time she had been separated from Lewis and Ned, the last of her children that remained to her. To be sure, the other three were probably living somewhere, and so was her husband. But she only knew that they had gone into hopeless servitude, where she knew not. Indeed, she did not know but that they were already dead, and she did not expect ever to hear, for slaves are seldom able to write, and often not permitted to when they can. If there had only been hope of hearing from them at some time or other she could have endured it. But between her and those loved ones there rested a thick cloud of utter darkness; beyond that they might be toiling, groaning, bleeding, starving, dying beneath the oppressor's lash in the deadly swamp, or in the teeth of the cruel hounds, and she could not have the privilege of ministering to the least of their wants, of soothing one of their sorrows, or even dropping a silent tear beside them. If she could have heard only one fact about them it would have been some relief. But she could not enjoy even this poor privilege. And then came the dead, heavy stillness of despair creeping over her spirits.

Do you wonder that she became perfectly wild, and beside herself at times? How would you feel if all you loved best were carried off by a cruel slave-driver, and you had no hope of hearing from them again in this world?

During these dreadful fits of insanity she would bewail the living as worse than dead, and pray God to take them away. Then she would curse herself for being the mother of slave children, declaring that it would be far better to see them die in their childhood, than to see them grow up to suffer as she had suffered.

She lived only a few miles from her old home; but her new master was an uncommonly hard man, and would not permit her to go and see her children. He said it would only make her worse, and his slaves should learn that they were not to put on airs and have whims. It was their business to live for him. Didn't he pay enough for them, and see that they were well fed and clothed, and what more did they want? This he called kind treatment. Very kind, indeed, not to allow a mother to go and see her own children! But when she was taken with those insane spells, and would go on so about her children that she was not fit to work, indeed could not be made to work, it was finally suggested to him that a visit to her children would do her good.

This was the occasion of her present visit, and it was because she was insane that she attempted to take her own life. The wound, however, was not very deep, and Nancy did not die at this time. After the doctor had been there and dressed her wound, and affairs had become quiet, Lewis stole to the door of the cabin. He was afraid to go in. He hardly knew, any of the time, whether that strange wild woman could be his mother, only they told him she was. There was blood spattered here and there on the bare earth that served as a floor to the cabin, and on a straw mattress at one side lay the strange woman. Her eyes were shut, and now that she was more composed, he saw in the lineaments of that pale face the features of his mother; But her once glossy black hair had turned almost white since she had been away, and altogether there was such a wild expression that he was afraid, and crept quietly away again.

He then went to find his brother, who, of course, did not remember so much about her. But it was touching to see the two little lone brothers stand peeping in wonderingly at their own mother, who was so changed that they hardly knew her. Then they went off behind the kitchen to talk about it, and cry over it.

The strange big negro was Jerry, who belonged to the same master with Nancy, and he had come to bring her down. He was afraid that his master would be very angry if he should go back without her; but the doctor said the woman must not be moved for a week, and he wrote a letter for Jerry to carry borne to his master, while Nancy remained.

The next day, as they gained a little more courage, the brothers crept inside of the cabin. Their mother saw them, and beckoned them to her bed-side. She could scarcely speak a word distinctly, but taking first one and then the other by the hand, she said inquiringly: "Lewis?" "Lewis?" "Ned?"

They sat there at the bed-side by the hour that day. Sometimes she would hold their hands lovingly in hers; then again she would lay her hand gently on the heads of one and the other, and her eyes would wander lovingly over their faces, and then fill with tears.

After a day or two little restless, fun-loving Ned grew tired of this, and ran out to play; but Lewis stayed by his mother, and she was soon able to talk with him.

She showed him her wrists where they had been worn by the irons, and her back scarred by the whip, and she told him of cruelties that we may not repeat here. She talked with him as if he were a man, and not a child; and as he listened his heart and mind seemed to reach forward, and he became almost a man in thought. He seemed to live whole years in those few days that he talked with his mother. It was here that the fearful fact dawned upon him as it never had before. He was a slave! He had no control over his own person or actions, but he belonged soul and body to another man, who had power to control him in everything. And this would not have been so irksome had it been a person that he loved, but Master Stamford he hated. He never met him but to be called by some foul epithet, or booted out of the way. He had no choice whom he would serve, and there would be no end to the thankless servitude but death.

"Mother," said the boy, "what have we done that we should be treated so much worse than other people?"

"Nothing, my child, nothing. They say there is a God who has ordered all this, but I don't know about that." She stopped; her mother's heart forbade her to teach her child infidel principles, and she went on in a better strain of reasoning. "Perhaps he allows all this, to try if we will be good whether or no; but I am sure he cannot be pleased with the white folk's cruelty toward us, and they'll all have to suffer for it some day."

Then there was a long pause, when both mother and son seemed to be thinking sad, sad thoughts. Finally the mother broke the silence by saying: "Well, here we are, and the great question is how to make the best of it, if there is any best about it."

"I know what I'll do, mother," said Lewis earnestly, "I'll run away when I'm old enough."

"I hope you may get out of this terrible bondage, my child," said the mother; "but you had better keep that matter to yourself at present. It will be a long time before you are old enough. There is one thing about it, if you're going to be a free man, you'll want to know how to read."

Lewis's heart was full again, and he told his mother the whole story of the primer.

"And did Missy Katy never ask about it afterward?" inquired the mother.

"No, she never has said a word about it."