After the disappointed lady had resumed her seat, and the train had moved off, she closed her eyes, slightly raising her hands, and in a sanctified tone said to my master, “Oh! I hope, sir, your boy will not turn out to be so worthless as my Ned has. Oh! I was as kind to him as if he had been my own son. Oh! sir, it grieves me very much to think that after all I did for him he should go off without having any cause whatever.”
“When did he leave you?” asked Mr. Johnson.
“About eighteen months ago, and I have never seen hair or hide of him since.”
“Did he have a wife?” enquired a very respectable-looking young gentleman, who was sitting near my master and opposite to the lady.
“No, sir; not when he left, though he did have one a little before that. She was very unlike him; she was as good and as faithful a nigger as anyone need wish to have. But, poor thing! she became so ill, that she was unable to do much work; so I thought it would be best to sell her, to go to New Orleans, where the climate is nice and warm.”
“I suppose she was very glad to go South for the restoration of her health?” said the gentleman.
“No; she was not,” replied the lady, “for niggers never know what is best for them. She took on a great deal about leaving Ned and the little nigger; but, as she was so weakly, I let her go.”
“Was she good-looking?” asked the young passenger, who was evidently not of the same opinion as the talkative lady, and therefore wished her to tell all she knew.
“Yes; she was very handsome, and much whiter than I am; and therefore will have no trouble in getting another husband. I am sure I wish her well. I asked the speculator who bought her to sell her to a good master. Poor thing! she has my prayers, and I know she prays for me. She was a good Christian, and always used to pray for my soul. It was through her earliest prayers,” continued the lady, “that I was first led to seek forgiveness of my sins, before I was converted at the great camp-meeting.”
This caused the lady to snuffle and to draw from her pocket a richly embroidered handkerchief, and apply it to the corner of her eyes. But my master could not see that it was at all soiled.
The silence which prevailed for a few moments was broken by the gentleman’s saying, “As your ‘July’ was such a very good girl, and had served you so faithfully before she lost her health, don’t you think it would have been better to have emancipated her?”
“No, indeed I do not!” scornfully exclaimed the lady, as she impatiently crammed the fine handkerchief into a little workbag. “I have no patience with people who set niggers at liberty. It is the very worst thing you can do for them. My dear husband just before he died willed all his niggers free. But I and all our friends knew very well that he was too good a man to have ever thought of doing such an unkind and foolish thing, had he been in his right mind, and, therefore we had the will altered as it should have been in the first place.”
“Did you mean, madam,” asked my master, “that willing the slaves free was unjust to yourself, or unkind to them?”
“I mean that it was decidedly unkind to the servants themselves. It always seems to me such a cruel thing to turn niggers loose to shift for themselves, when there are so many good masters to take care of them. As for myself,” continued the considerate lady, “I thank the Lord my dear husband left me and my son well provided for. Therefore I care nothing for the niggers, on my own account, for they are a great deal more trouble than they are worth, I sometimes wish that there was not one of them in the world; for the ungrateful wretches are always running away. I have lost no less than ten since my poor husband died. It’s ruinous, sir!”
“But as you are well provided for, I suppose you do not feel the loss very much,” said the passenger.
“I don’t feel it at all,” haughtily continued the good soul; “but that is no reason why property should be squandered. If my son and myself had the money for those valuable niggers, just see what a great deal of good we could do for the poor, and in sending missionaries abroad to the poor heathen, who have never heard the name of our blessed Redeemer. My dear son who is a good Christian minister has advised me not to worry and send my soul to hell for the sake of niggers; but to sell every blessed one of them for what they will fetch, and go and live in peace with him in New York. This I have concluded to do. I have just been to Richmond and made arrangements with my agent to make clean work of the forty that are left.”
“Your son being a good Christian minister,” said the gentleman, “It’s strange he did not advise you to let the poor negroes have their liberty and go North.”
“It’s not at all strange, sir; it’s not at all strange. My son knows what’s best for the niggers; he has always told me that they were much better off than the free niggers in the North. In fact, I don’t believe there are any white labouring people in the world who are as well off as the slaves.”
“You are quite mistaken, madam,” said the young man. “For instance, my own widowed mother, before she died, emancipated all
