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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Iola Leroy, by Frances E.W. Harper
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Iola Leroy
+       Shadows Uplifted
+
+Author: Frances E.W. Harper
+
+Release Date: May 14, 2004 [EBook #12352]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IOLA LEROY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+IOLA LEROY,
+
+OR
+
+SHADOWS UPLIFTED.
+
+BY
+
+FRANCES E.W. HARPER.
+
+
+
+
+1893, Philadelphia
+
+TO MY DAUGHTER
+
+MARY E. HARPER,
+
+THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+I confess when I first learned that Mrs. Harper was about to write "a
+story" on some features of the Anglo-African race, growing out of what
+was once popularly known as the "peculiar institution," I had my doubts
+about the matter. Indeed it was far from being easy for me to think that
+she was as fortunate as she might have been in selecting a subject which
+would afford her the best opportunity for bringing out a work of merit
+and lasting worth to the race--such a work as some of her personal
+friends have long desired to see from her graphic pen. However, after
+hearing a good portion of the manuscript read, and a general statement
+with regard to the object in view, I admit frankly that my partial
+indifference was soon swept away; at least I was willing to wait for
+further developments.
+
+Being very desirous that one of the race, so long distinguished in the
+cause of freedom for her intellectual worth as Mrs. Harper has had the
+honor of being, should not at this late date in life make a blunder
+which might detract from her own good name, I naturally proposed to
+await developments before deciding too quickly in favor of giving
+encouragement to her contemplated effort.
+
+However, I was perfectly aware of the fact that she had much material in
+her possession for a most interesting book on the subject of the
+condition of the colored people in the South. I know of no other woman,
+white or colored, anywhere, who has come so intimately in contact with
+the colored people in the South as Mrs. Harper. Since emancipation she
+has labored in every Southern State in the Union, save two, Arkansas and
+Texas; in the colleges, schools, churches, and the cabins not excepted,
+she has found a vast field and open doors to teach and speak on the
+themes of education, temperance, and good home building, industry,
+morality, and the like, and never lacked for evidences of hearty
+appreciation and gratitude.
+
+Everywhere help was needed, and her heart being deeply absorbed in the
+cause she willingly allowed her sympathies to impel her to perform most
+heroic services.
+
+With her it was no uncommon occurrence, in visiting cities or towns, to
+speak at two, three, and four meetings a day; sometimes to promiscuous
+audiences composed of everybody who would care to come.
+
+But the kind of meetings she took greatest interest in were meetings
+called exclusively for women. In this attitude she could pour out her
+sympathies to them as she could not do before a mixed audience; and
+indeed she felt their needs were far more pressing than any other class.
+
+And now I am prepared to most fully indorse her story. I doubt whether
+she could, if she had tried ever so much, have hit upon a subject so
+well adapted to reach a large number of her friends and the public with
+both entertaining and instructive matter as successfully as she has done
+in this volume.
+
+The grand and ennobling sentiments which have characterized all her
+utterances in laboring for the elevation of the oppressed will not be
+found missing in this book.
+
+The previous books from her pen, which have been so very widely
+circulated and admired, North and South--"Forest Leaves," "Miscellaneous
+Poems," "Moses, a Story of the Nile," "Poems," and "Sketches of Southern
+Life" (five in number)--these, I predict, will be by far eclipsed by
+this last effort, which will, in all probability, be the crowning effort
+of her long and valuable services in the cause of humanity.
+
+While, as indicated, Mrs. Harper has done a large amount of work in the
+South, she has at the same time done much active service in the
+temperance cause in the North, as thousands of this class can testify.
+
+Before the war she was engaged as a speaker by anti-slavery
+associations; since then, by appointment of the Women's Christian
+Temperance Union, she has held the office of "Superintendent of Colored
+Work" for years. She has also held the office of one of the Directors of
+the Women's Congress of the United States.
+
+Under the auspices of these influential, earnest, and intelligent
+associations, she has been seen often on their platforms with the
+leading lady orators of the nation.
+
+Hence, being widely known not only amongst her own race but likewise by
+the reformers, laboring for the salvation of the intemperate and others
+equally unfortunate, there is little room to doubt that the book will be
+in great demand and will meet with warm congratulations from a goodly
+number outside of the author's social connections.
+
+Doubtless the thousands of colored Sunday-schools in the South, in
+casting about for an interesting, moral story-book, full of practical
+lessons, will not be content to be without "IOLA LEROY, OR SHADOWS
+UPLIFTED."
+
+WILLIAM STILL.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+Chapter
+
+I. The Mystery of Market Speech and Prayer Meetings
+
+II. Contraband of War
+
+III. Uncle Daniel's Story
+
+IV. Arrival of the Union Army
+
+V. Release of Iola Leroy
+
+VI. Robert Johnson's Promotion and Religion
+
+VII. Tom Anderson's Death
+
+VIII. The Mystified Doctor
+
+IX. Eugene Leroy and Alfred Lorraine
+
+X. Shadows in the Home
+
+XI. The Plague and the Law
+
+XII. School-girl Notions
+
+XIII. A Rejected Suitor
+
+XIV. Harry Leroy
+
+XV. Robert and his Company
+
+XVI. After the Battle
+
+XVII. Flames in the School-Room
+
+XVIII. Searching for Lost Ones
+
+XIX. Striking Contrasts
+
+XX. A Revelation
+
+XXI. A Home for Mother
+
+XXII. Further Lifting of the Veil
+
+XXIII. Delightful Reunions
+
+XXIV. Northern Experience
+
+XXV. An Old Friend
+
+XXVI. Open Questions
+
+XXVII. Diverging Paths
+
+XXVIII. Dr. Latrobe's Mistake
+
+XXIX. Visitors from the South
+
+XXX. Friends in Council
+
+XXXI. Dawning Affections
+
+XXXII. Wooing and Wedding
+
+XXXIII. Conclusion
+
+Note
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+MYSTERY OF MARKET SPEECH AND PRAYER-MEETING.
+
+"Good mornin', Bob; how's butter dis mornin'?"
+
+"Fresh; just as fresh, as fresh can be."
+
+"Oh, glory!" said the questioner, whom we shall call Thomas Anderson,
+although he was known among his acquaintances as Marster Anderson's Tom.
+
+His informant regarding the condition of the market was Robert Johnson,
+who had been separated from his mother in his childhood and reared by
+his mistress as a favorite slave. She had fondled him as a pet animal,
+and even taught him to read. Notwithstanding their relation as mistress
+and slave, they had strong personal likings for each other.
+
+Tom Anderson was the servant of a wealthy planter, who lived in the city
+of C----, North Carolina. This planter was quite advanced in life, but
+in his earlier days he had spent much of his time in talking politics in
+his State and National capitals in winter, and in visiting pleasure
+resorts and watering places in summer. His plantations were left to the
+care of overseers who, in their turn, employed negro drivers to aid them
+in the work of cultivation and discipline. But as the infirmities of age
+were pressing upon him he had withdrawn from active life, and given the
+management of his affairs into the hands of his sons. As Robert Johnson
+and Thomas Anderson passed homeward from the market, having bought
+provisions for their respective homes, they seemed to be very
+light-hearted and careless, chatting and joking with each other; but
+every now and then, after looking furtively around, one would drop into
+the ears of the other some news of the battle then raging between the
+North and South which, like two great millstones, were grinding slavery
+to powder.
+
+As they passed along, they were met by another servant, who said in
+hurried tones, but with a glad accent in his voice:--
+
+"Did you see de fish in de market dis mornin'? Oh, but dey war splendid,
+jis' as fresh, as fresh kin be."
+
+"That's the ticket," said Robert, as a broad smile overspread his face.
+"I'll see you later."
+
+"Good mornin', boys," said another servant on his way to market. "How's
+eggs dis mornin'?"
+
+"Fust rate, fust rate," said Tom Anderson. "Bob's got it down fine."
+
+"I thought so; mighty long faces at de pos'-office dis mornin'; but I'd
+better move 'long," and with a bright smile lighting up his face he
+passed on with a quickened tread.
+
+There seemed to be an unusual interest manifested by these men in the
+state of the produce market, and a unanimous report of its good
+condition. Surely there was nothing in the primeness of the butter or
+the freshness of the eggs to change careless looking faces into such
+expressions of gratification, or to light dull eyes with such gladness.
+What did it mean?
+
+During the dark days of the Rebellion, when the bondman was turning his
+eyes to the American flag, and learning to hail it as an ensign of
+deliverance, some of the shrewder slaves, coming in contact with their
+masters and overhearing their conversations, invented a phraseology to
+convey in the most unsuspected manner news to each other from the
+battle-field. Fragile women and helpless children were left on the
+plantations while their natural protectors were at the front, and yet
+these bondmen refrained from violence. Freedom was coming in the wake of
+the Union army, and while numbers deserted to join their forces, others
+remained at home, slept in their cabins by night and attended to their
+work by day; but under this apparently careless exterior there was an
+undercurrent of thought which escaped the cognizance of their masters.
+In conveying tidings of the war, if they wished to announce a victory of
+the Union army, they said the butter was fresh, or that the fish and
+eggs were in good condition. If defeat befell them, then the butter and
+other produce were rancid or stale.
+
+Entering his home, Robert set his basket down. In one arm he held a
+bundle of papers which he had obtained from the train to sell to the
+boarders, who were all anxious to hear from the seat of battle. He
+slipped one copy out and, looking cautiously around, said to Linda, the
+cook, in a low voice:--
+
+"Splendid news in the papers. Secesh routed. Yankees whipped 'em out of
+their boots. Papers full of it. I tell you the eggs and the butter's
+mighty fresh this morning."
+
+"Oh, sho, chile," said Linda, "I can't read de newspapers, but ole
+Missus' face is newspaper nuff for me. I looks at her ebery mornin' wen
+she comes inter dis kitchen. Ef her face is long an' she walks kine o'
+droopy den I thinks things is gwine wrong for dem. But ef she comes out
+yere looking mighty pleased, an' larffin all ober her face, an' steppin'
+so frisky, den I knows de Secesh is gittin' de bes' ob de Yankees.
+Robby, honey, does you really b'lieve for good and righty dat dem
+Yankees is got horns?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Well, I yered so."
+
+"Well, you heard a mighty big whopper."
+
+"Anyhow, Bobby, things goes mighty contrary in dis house. Ole Miss is in
+de parlor prayin' for de Secesh to gain de day, and we's prayin' in de
+cabins and kitchens for de Yankees to get de bes' ob it. But wasn't Miss
+Nancy glad wen dem Yankees run'd away at Bull's Run. It was nuffin but
+Bull's Run an' run away Yankees. How she did larff and skip 'bout de
+house. An' den me thinks to myself you'd better not holler till you gits
+out ob de woods. I specs 'fore dem Yankees gits froo you'll be larffin
+tother side ob your mouf. While you was gone to market ole Miss com'd
+out yere, her face looking as long as my arm, tellin' us all 'bout de
+war and saying dem Yankees whipped our folks all to pieces. And she was
+'fraid dey'd all be down yere soon. I thought they couldn't come too
+soon for we. But I didn't tell her so."
+
+"No, I don't expect you did."
+
+"No, I didn't; ef you buys me for a fool you loses your money shore. She
+said when dey com'd down yere she wanted all de men to hide, for dey'd
+kill all de men, but dey wouldn't tech de women."
+
+"It's no such thing. She's put it all wrong. Why them Yankees are our
+best friends."
+
+"Dat's jis' what I thinks. Ole Miss was jis' tryin to skeer a body. An'
+when she war done she jis' set down and sniffled an' cried, an' I war so
+glad I didn't know what to do. But I had to hole in. An' I made out I
+war orful sorry. An' Jinny said, 'O Miss Nancy, I hope dey won't come
+yere.' An' she said, 'I'se jis' 'fraid dey will come down yere and
+gobble up eberything dey can lay dere hands on.' An' she jis' looked as
+ef her heart war mos' broke, an' den she went inter de house. An' when
+she war gone, we jis' broke loose. Jake turned somersets, and said he
+warnt 'fraid ob dem Yankees; he know'd which side his brad was buttered
+on. Dat Jake is a cuter. When he goes down ter git de letters he cuts up
+all kines ob shines and capers. An' to look at him skylarking dere while
+de folks is waitin' for dere letters, an' talkin' bout de war, yer
+wouldn't think dat boy had a thimbleful of sense. But Jake's listenin'
+all de time wid his eyes and his mouf wide open, an' ketchin' eberything
+he kin, an' a heap ob news he gits dat way. As to Jinny, she jis'
+capered and danced all ober de flore. An' I jis' had to put my han' ober
+her mouf to keep ole Miss from yereing her. Oh, but we did hab a good
+time. Boy, yer oughter been yere."
+
+"And, Aunt Linda, what did you do?"
+
+"Oh, honey, I war jis' ready to crack my sides larffin, jis' to see what
+a long face Jinny puts on wen ole Miss is talkin', an' den to see dat
+face wen missus' back is turned, why it's good as a circus. It's nuff to
+make a horse larff."
+
+"Why, Aunt Linda, you never saw a circus?"
+
+"No, but I'se hearn tell ob dem, and I thinks dey mus' be mighty funny.
+An' I know it's orful funny to see how straight Jinny's face looks wen
+she's almos' ready to bust, while ole Miss is frettin' and fumin' 'bout
+dem Yankees an' de war. But, somehow, Robby, I ralely b'lieves dat we
+cullud folks is mixed up in dis fight. I seed it all in a vision. An'
+soon as dey fired on dat fort, Uncle Dan'el says to me: 'Linda, we's
+gwine to git our freedom.' An' I says: 'Wat makes you think so?" An' he
+says: 'Dey've fired on Fort Sumter, an' de Norf is boun' to whip.'"
+
+"I hope so," said Robert. "I think that we have a heap of friends up
+there."
+
+"Well, I'm jis' gwine to keep on prayin' an' b'lievin'."
+
+Just then the bell rang, and Robert, answering, found Mrs. Johnson
+suffering from a severe headache, which he thought was occasioned by her
+worrying over the late defeat of the Confederates. She sent him on an
+errand, which he executed with his usual dispatch, and returned to some
+work which he had to do in the kitchen. Robert was quite a favorite with
+Aunt Linda, and they often had confidential chats together.
+
+"Bobby," she said, when he returned, "I thinks we ort ter hab a
+prayer-meetin' putty soon."
+
+"I am in for that. Where will you have it?"
+
+"Lem me see. Las' Sunday we had it in Gibson's woods; Sunday 'fore las',
+in de old cypress swamp; an' nex' Sunday we'el hab one in McCullough's
+woods. Las' Sunday we had a good time. I war jis' chock full an' runnin'
+ober. Aunt Milly's daughter's bin monin all summer, an' she's jis' come
+throo. We had a powerful time. Eberythin' on dat groun' was jis' alive.
+I tell yer, dere was a shout in de camp."
+
+"Well, you had better look out, and not shout too much, and pray and
+sing too loud, because, 'fore you know, the patrollers will be on your
+track and break up your meetin' in a mighty big hurry, before you can
+say 'Jack Robinson.'"
+
+"Oh, we looks out for dat. We's got a nice big pot, dat got cracked las'
+winter, but it will hole a lot o' water, an' we puts it whar we can tell
+it eberything. We has our own good times. An' I want you to come Sunday
+night an' tell all 'bout the good eggs, fish, and butter. Mark my words,
+Bobby, we's all gwine to git free. I seed it all in a vision, as plain
+as de nose on yer face."
+
+"Well, I hope your vision will come out all right, and that the eggs
+will keep and the butter be fresh till we have our next meetin'."
+
+"Now, Bob, you sen' word to Uncle Dan'el, Tom Anderson, an' de rest ob
+dem, to come to McCullough's woods nex' Sunday night. I want to hab a
+sin-killin' an' debil-dribin' time. But, boy, you'd better git out er
+yere. Ole Miss'll be down on yer like a scratch cat."
+
+Although the slaves were denied unrestricted travel, and the holding of
+meetings without the surveillance of a white man, yet they contrived to
+meet by stealth and hold gatherings where they could mingle their
+prayers and tears, and lay plans for escaping to the Union army.
+Outwitting the vigilance of the patrollers and home guards, they
+established these meetings miles apart, extending into several States.
+
+Sometimes their hope of deliverance was cruelly blighted by hearing of
+some adventurous soul who, having escaped to the Union army, had been
+pursued and returned again to bondage. Yet hope survived all these
+disasters which gathered around the fate of their unfortunate brethren,
+who were remanded to slavery through the undiscerning folly of those who
+were strengthening the hands which were dealing their deadliest blows at
+the heart of the Nation. But slavery had cast such a glamour over the
+Nation, and so warped the consciences of men, that they failed to read
+aright the legible transcript of Divine retribution which was written
+upon the shuddering earth, where the blood of God's poor children had
+been as water freely spilled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+CONTRABAND OF WAR.
+
+A few evenings after this conversation between Robert and Linda, a
+prayer-meeting was held. Under the cover of night a few dusky figures
+met by stealth in McCullough's woods.
+
+"Howdy," said Robert, approaching Uncle Daniel, the leader of the
+prayer-meeting, who had preceded him but a few minutes.
+
+"Thanks and praise; I'se all right. How is you, chile?"
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," said Robert, smiling, and grasping Uncle Daniel's
+hand.
+
+"What's de news?" exclaimed several, as they turned their faces eagerly
+towards Robert.
+
+"I hear," said Robert, "that they are done sending the runaways back to
+their masters."
+
+"Is dat so?" said a half dozen earnest voices. "How did you yere it?"
+
+"I read it in the papers. And Tom told me he heard them talking about it
+last night, at his house. How did you hear it, Tom? Come, tell us all
+about it."
+
+Tom Anderson hesitated a moment, and then said:--
+
+"Now, boys, I'll tell you all 'bout it. But you's got to be mighty mum
+'bout it. It won't do to let de cat outer de bag."
+
+"Dat's so! But tell us wat you yered. We ain't gwine to say nuffin to
+nobody."
+
+"Well," said Tom, "las' night ole Marster had company. Two big
+ginerals, and dey was hoppin' mad. One ob dem looked like a turkey
+gobbler, his face war so red. An' he sed one ob dem Yankee ginerals, I
+thinks dey called him Beas' Butler, sed dat de slaves dat runned away
+war some big name--I don't know what he called it. But it meant dat all
+ob we who com'd to de Yankees should be free."
+
+"Contraband of war," said Robert, who enjoyed the distinction of being a
+good reader, and was pretty well posted about the war. Mrs. Johnson had
+taught him to read on the same principle she would have taught a pet
+animal amusing tricks. She had never imagined the time would come when
+he would use the machinery she had put in his hands to help overthrow
+the institution to which she was so ardently attached.
+
+"What does it mean? Is it somethin' good for us?"
+
+"I think," said Robert, a little vain of his superior knowledge, "it is
+the best kind of good. It means if two armies are fighting and the
+horses of one run away, the other has a right to take them. And it is
+just the same if a slave runs away from the Secesh to the Union lines.
+He is called a contraband, just the same as if he were an ox or a horse.
+They wouldn't send the horses back, and they won't send us back."
+
+"Is dat so?" said Uncle Daniel, a dear old father, with a look of
+saintly patience on his face. "Well, chillen, what do you mean to do?"
+
+"Go, jis' as soon as we kin git to de army," said Tom Anderson.
+
+"What else did the generals say? And how did you come to hear them,
+Tom?" asked Robert Johnson.
+
+"Well, yer see, Marster's too ole and feeble to go to de war, but his
+heart's in it. An' it makes him feel good all ober when dem big ginerals
+comes an' tells him all 'bout it. Well, I war laying out on de porch
+fas' asleep an' snorin' drefful hard. Oh, I war so soun' asleep dat wen
+Marster wanted some ice-water he had to shake me drefful hard to wake me
+up. An' all de time I war wide 'wake as he war."
+
+"What did they say?" asked Robert, who was always on the lookout for
+news from the battle-field.
+
+"One ob dem said, dem Yankees war talkin' of puttin' guns in our han's
+and settin' us all free. An' de oder said, 'Oh, sho! ef dey puts guns in
+dere hands dey'll soon be in our'n; and ef dey sets em free dey wouldn't
+know how to take keer ob demselves.'"
+
+"Only let 'em try it," chorused a half dozen voices, "an' dey'll soon
+see who'll git de bes' ob de guns; an' as to taking keer ob ourselves, I
+specs we kin take keer ob ourselves as well as take keer ob dem."
+
+"Yes," said Tom, "who plants de cotton and raises all de crops?"
+
+    "'They eat the meat and give us the bones,
+      Eat the cherries and give us the stones,'
+
+"And I'm getting tired of the whole business," said Robert.
+
+"But, Bob," said Uncle Daniel, "you've got a good owner. You don't hab
+to run away from bad times and wuss a comin'."
+
+"It isn't so good, but it might be better. I ain't got nothing 'gainst
+my ole Miss, except she sold my mother from me. And a boy ain't nothin'
+without his mother. I forgive her, but I never forget her, and never
+expect to. But if she were the best woman on earth I would rather have
+my freedom than belong to her. Well, boys, here's a chance for us just
+as soon as the Union army gets in sight. What will you do?"
+
+"I'se a goin," said Tom Anderson, "jis' as soon as dem Linkum soldiers
+gits in sight."
+
+"An' I'se a gwine wid you, Tom," said another. "I specs my ole
+Marster'll feel right smart lonesome when I'se gone, but I don't keer
+'bout stayin' for company's sake."
+
+"My ole Marster's room's a heap better'n his company," said Tom
+Anderson, "an' I'se a goner too. Dis yer freedom's too good to be lef'
+behind, wen you's got a chance to git it. I won't stop to bid ole Marse
+good bye."
+
+"What do you think," said Robert, turning to Uncle Daniel; "won't you go
+with us?"
+
+"No, chillen, I don't blame you for gwine; but I'se gwine to stay.
+Slavery's done got all de marrow out ob dese poor ole bones. Ef freedom
+comes it won't do me much good; we ole one's will die out, but it will
+set you youngsters all up."
+
+"But, Uncle Daniel, you're not too old to want your freedom?"
+
+"I knows dat. I lubs de bery name of freedom. I'se been praying and
+hoping for it dese many years. An' ef I warn't boun', I would go wid you
+ter-morrer. I won't put a straw in your way. You boys go, and my prayers
+will go wid you. I can't go, it's no use. I'se gwine to stay on de ole
+place till Marse Robert comes back, or is brought back."
+
+"But, Uncle Daniel," said Robert, "what's the use of praying for a
+thing if, when it comes, you won't take it? As much as you have been
+praying and talking about freedom, I thought that when the chance came
+you would have been one of the first to take it. Now, do tell us why you
+won't go with us. Ain't you willing?"
+
+"Why, Robbie, my whole heart is wid you. But when Marse Robert went to
+de war, he called me into his room and said to me, 'Uncle Dan'el, I'se
+gwine to de war, an' I want you to look arter my wife an' chillen, an'
+see dat eberything goes right on de place'. An' I promised him I'd do it,
+an' I mus' be as good as my word. 'Cept de overseer, dere isn't a white
+man on de plantation, an' I hear he has to report ter-morrer or be
+treated as a deserter. An' der's nobody here to look arter Miss Mary an'
+de chillen, but myself, an' to see dat eberything goes right. I promised
+Marse Robert I would do it, an' I mus' be as good as my word."
+
+"Well, what should you keer?" said Tom Anderson. "Who looked arter you
+when you war sole from your farder and mudder, an' neber seed dem any
+more, and wouldn't know dem to-day ef you met dem in your dish?"
+
+"Well, dats neither yere nor dere. Marse Robert couldn't help what his
+father did. He war an orful mean man. But he's dead now, and gone to see
+'bout it. But his wife war the nicest, sweetest lady dat eber I did see.
+She war no more like him dan chalk's like cheese. She used to visit de
+cabins, an' listen to de pore women when de overseer used to cruelize
+dem so bad, an' drive dem to work late and early. An' she used to sen'
+dem nice things when they war sick, and hab der cabins whitewashed an'
+lookin' like new pins, an' look arter dere chillen. Sometimes she'd try
+to git ole Marse to take dere part when de oberseer got too mean. But
+she might as well a sung hymns to a dead horse. All her putty talk war
+like porin water on a goose's back. He'd jis' bluff her off, an' tell
+her she didn't run dat plantation, and not for her to bring him any
+nigger news. I never thought ole Marster war good to her. I often
+ketched her crying, an' she'd say she had de headache, but I thought it
+war de heartache. 'Fore ole Marster died, she got so thin an' peaked I
+war 'fraid she war gwine to die; but she seed him out. He war killed by
+a tree fallin' on him, an' ef eber de debil got his own he got him. I
+seed him in a vision arter he war gone. He war hangin' up in a pit,
+sayin' 'Oh! oh!' wid no close on. He war allers blusterin', cussin', and
+swearin' at somebody. Marse Robert ain't a bit like him. He takes right
+arter his mother. Bad as ole Marster war, I think she jis' lob'd de
+groun' he walked on. Well, women's mighty curious kind of folks anyhow.
+I sometimes thinks de wuss you treats dem de better dey likes you."
+
+"Well," said Tom, a little impatiently, "what's yer gwine to do? Is yer
+gwine wid us, ef yer gits a chance?"
+
+"Now, jes' you hole on till I gits a chance to tell yer why I'se gwine
+to stay."
+
+"Well, Uncle Daniel, let's hear it," said Robert.
+
+"I was jes' gwine to tell yer when Tom put me out. Ole Marster died when
+Marse Robert war two years ole, and his pore mother when he war four.
+When he died, Miss Anna used to keep me 'bout her jes' like I war her
+shadder. I used to nuss Marse Robert jes' de same as ef I were his own
+fadder. I used to fix his milk, rock him to sleep, ride him on my back,
+an' nothin' pleased him better'n fer Uncle Dan'el to ride him
+piggy-back."
+
+"Well, Uncle Daniel," said Robert, "what has that got to do with your
+going with us and getting your freedom?"
+
+"Now, jes' wait a bit, and don't frustrate my mine. I seed day arter day
+Miss Anna war gettin' weaker and thinner, an' she looked so sweet and
+talked so putty, I thinks to myself, 'you ain't long for dis worl'.' And
+she said to me one day, 'Uncle Dan'el, when I'se gone, I want you to be
+good to your Marster Robert.' An' she looked so pale and weak I war
+almost ready to cry. I couldn't help it. She hed allers bin mighty good
+to me. An' I beliebs in praisin' de bridge dat carries me ober. She
+said, 'Uncle Dan'el, I wish you war free. Ef I had my way you shouldn't
+serve any one when I'm gone; but Mr. Thurston had eberything in his
+power when he made his will. I war tied hand and foot, and I couldn't
+help it.' In a little while she war gone--jis' faded away like a flower.
+I belieb ef dere's a saint in glory, Miss Anna's dere."
+
+"Oh, I don't take much stock in white folks' religion," said Robert,
+laughing carelessly.
+
+"The way," said Tom Anderson, "dat some of dese folks cut their cards
+yere, I think dey'll be as sceece in hebben as hen's teeth. I think wen
+some of dem preachers brings de Bible 'round an' tells us 'bout mindin
+our marsters and not stealin' dere tings, dat dey preach to please de
+white folks, an' dey frows coleness ober de meetin'."
+
+"An' I," said Aunt Linda, "neber did belieb in dem Bible preachers. I
+yered one ob dem sayin' wen he war dyin', it war all dark wid him. An'
+de way he treated his house-girl, pore thing, I don't wonder dat it war
+dark wid him."
+
+"O, I guess," said Robert, "that the Bible is all right, but some of
+these church folks don't get the right hang of it."
+
+"May be dat's so," said Aunt Linda. "But I allers wanted to learn how to
+read. I once had a book, and tried to make out what war in it, but ebery
+time my mistus caught me wid a book in my hand, she used to whip my
+fingers. An' I couldn't see ef it war good for white folks, why it
+warn't good for cullud folks."
+
+"Well," said Tom Anderson, "I belieb in de good ole-time religion. But
+arter dese white folks is done fussin' and beatin' de cullud folks, I
+don't want 'em to come talking religion to me. We used to hab on our
+place a real Guinea man, an' once he made ole Marse mad, an' he had him
+whipped. Old Marse war trying to break him in, but dat fellow war spunk
+to de backbone, an' when he 'gin talkin' to him 'bout savin' his soul
+an' gittin' to hebbin, he tole him ef he went to hebbin an' foun' he war
+dare, he wouldn't go in. He wouldn't stay wid any such rascal as he
+war."
+
+"What became of him?" asked Robert.
+
+"Oh, he died. But he had some quare notions 'bout religion. He thought
+dat when he died he would go back to his ole country. He allers kep' his
+ole Guinea name."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"Potobombra. Do you know what he wanted Marster to do 'fore he died?"
+continued Anderson.
+
+"No."
+
+"He wanted him to gib him his free papers."
+
+"Did he do it?"
+
+"Ob course he did. As de poor fellow war dying an' he couldn't sell him
+in de oder world, he jis' wrote him de papers to yumor him. He didn't
+want to go back to Africa a slave. He thought if he did, his people
+would look down on him, an' he wanted to go back a free man. He war
+orful weak when Marster brought him de free papers. He jis' ris up in de
+bed, clutched dem in his han's, smiled, an' gasped out, 'I'se free at
+las'; an' fell back on de pillar, an' he war gone. Oh, but he war
+spunky. De oberseers, arter dey foun' out who he war, gin'rally gabe him
+a wide birth. I specs his father war some ole Guinea king."
+
+"Well, chillen," said Uncle Daniel, "we's kept up dis meeting long
+enough. We'd better go home, and not all go one way, cause de patrollers
+might git us all inter trouble, an' we must try to slip home by hook or
+crook."
+
+"An' when we meet again, Uncle Daniel can finish his story, an' be ready
+to go with us," said Robert.
+
+"I wish," said Tom Anderson, "he would go wid us, de wuss kind."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+UNCLE DANIEL'S STORY.
+
+The Union had snapped asunder because it lacked the cohesion of justice,
+and the Nation was destined to pass through the crucible of disaster and
+defeat, till she was ready to clasp hands with the negro and march
+abreast with him to freedom and victory.
+
+The Union army was encamping a few miles from C----, in North Carolina.
+Robert, being well posted on the condition of affairs, had stealthily
+contrived to call a meeting in Uncle Daniel's cabin. Uncle Daniel's wife
+had gone to bed as a sick sister, and they held a prayer-meeting by her
+bedside. It was a little risky, but as Mr. Thurston did not encourage
+the visits of the patrollers, and heartily detested having them prying
+into his cabins, there was not much danger of molestation.
+
+"Well, Uncle Daniel, we want to hear your story, and see if you have
+made up your mind to go with us," said Robert, after he had been seated
+a few minutes in Uncle Daniel's cabin.
+
+"No, chillen, I've no objection to finishin' my story, but I ain't made
+up my mind to leave the place till Marse Robert gits back."
+
+"You were telling us about Marse Robert's mother. How did you get along
+after she died?"
+
+"Arter she war gone, ole Marster's folks come to look arter things. But
+eberything war lef' to Marse Robert, an' he wouldn't do widout me. Dat
+chile war allers at my heels. I couldn't stir widout him, an' when he
+missed me, he'd fret an' cry so I had ter stay wid him; an' wen he went
+to school, I had ter carry him in de mornin' and bring him home in de
+ebenin'. An' I learned him to hunt squirrels, an' rabbits, an' ketch
+fish, an' set traps for birds. I beliebs he lob'd me better dan any ob
+his kin'. An' he showed me how to read."
+
+"Well," said Tom, "ef he lob'd you so much, why didn't he set you free?"
+
+"Marse Robert tole me, ef he died fust he war gwine ter leave me
+free--dat I should neber sarve any one else."
+
+"Oh, sho!" said Tom, "promises, like pie crusts, is made to be broken. I
+don't trust none ob dem. I'se been yere dese fifteen years, an' I'se
+neber foun' any troof in dem. An' I'se gwine wid dem North men soon's I
+gits a chance. An' ef you knowed what's good fer you, you'd go, too."
+
+"No, Tom; I can't go. When Marster Robert went to de front, he called me
+to him an' said: 'Uncle Daniel,' an' he was drefful pale when he said
+it, 'I are gwine to de war, an' I want yer to take keer of my wife an'
+chillen, jis' like yer used to take keer of me wen yer called me your
+little boy.' Well, dat jis' got to me, an' I couldn't help cryin', to
+save my life."
+
+"I specs," said Tom, "your tear bags must lie mighty close to your eyes.
+I wouldn't cry ef dem Yankees would make ebery one ob dem go to de
+front, an' stay dere foreber. Dey'd only be gittin' back what dey's been
+a doin' to us."
+
+"Marster Robert war nebber bad to me. An' I beliebs in stannin' by dem
+dat stans by you. Arter Miss Anna died, I had great 'sponsibilities on
+my shoulders; but I war orful lonesome, an' thought I'd like to git a
+wife. But dere warn't a gal on de plantation, an' nowhere's roun', dat
+filled de bill. So I jis' waited, an' 'tended to Marse Robert till he
+war ole 'nough to go to college. Wen he went, he allers 'membered me in
+de letters he used to write his grandma. Wen he war gone, I war
+lonesomer dan eber. But, one day, I jis' seed de gal dat took de rag off
+de bush. Gundover had jis' brought her from de up-country. She war putty
+as a picture!" he exclaimed, looking fondly at his wife, who still bore
+traces of great beauty. "She had putty hair, putty eyes, putty mouth.
+She war putty all over; an' she know'd how to put on style."
+
+"O, Daniel," said Aunt Katie, half chidingly, "how you do talk."
+
+"Why, it's true. I 'member when you war de puttiest gal in dese diggins;
+when nobody could top your cotton."
+
+"I don't," said Aunt Katie.
+
+"Well, I do. Now, let me go on wid my story. De fust time I seed her, I
+sez to myself, 'Dat's de gal for me, an' I means to hab her ef I kin git
+her.' So I scraped 'quaintance wid her, and axed her ef she would hab me
+ef our marsters would let us. I warn't 'fraid 'bout Marse Robert, but I
+warn't quite shore 'bout Gundover. So when Marse Robert com'd home, I
+axed him, an' he larf'd an' said, 'All right,' an' dat he would speak to
+ole Gundover 'bout it. He didn't relish it bery much, but he didn't
+like to 'fuse Marse Robert. He wouldn't sell her, for she tended his
+dairy, an' war mighty handy 'bout de house. He said, I mought marry her
+an' come to see her wheneber Marse Robert would gib me a pass. I wanted
+him to sell her, but he wouldn't hear to it, so I had to put up wid what
+I could git. Marse Robert war mighty good to me, but ole Gundover's wife
+war de meanest woman dat I eber did see. She used to go out on de
+plantation an' boss things like a man. Arter I war married, I had a
+baby. It war de dearest, cutest little thing you eber did see; but, pore
+thing, it got sick and died. It died 'bout three o'clock; and in de
+mornin', Katie, habbin her cows to milk, lef her dead baby in de cabin.
+When she com'd back from milkin' her thirty cows, an' went to look for
+her pore little baby, some one had been to her cabin an' took'd de pore
+chile away an' put it in de groun'. Pore Katie, she didn't eben hab a
+chance to kiss her baby 'fore it war buried. Ole Gundover's wife has
+been dead thirty years, an' she didn't die a day too soon. An' my little
+baby has gone to glory, an' is wingin' wid the angels an' a lookin' out
+for us. One ob de las' things ole Gundover's wife did 'fore she died war
+to order a woman whipped 'cause she com'd to de field a little late when
+her husband war sick, an' she had stopped to tend him. Dat mornin' she
+war taken sick wid de fever, an' in a few days she war gone out like de
+snuff ob a candle. She lef' several sons, an' I specs she would almos'
+turn ober in her grave ef she know'd she had ten culled granchillen
+somewhar down in de lower kentry."
+
+"Isn't it funny," said Robert, "how these white folks look down on
+colored people, an' then mix up with them?"
+
+"Marster war away when Miss 'Liza treated my Katie so mean, an' when I
+tole him 'bout it, he war tearin' mad, an' went ober an' saw ole
+Gundover, an' foun' out he war hard up for money, an' he bought Katie
+and brought her home to lib wid me, and we's been a libin in clover eber
+sence. Marster Robert has been mighty good to me. He stood by me in my
+troubles, an' now his trouble's come, I'm a gwine to stan' by him. I
+used to think Gundover's wife war jealous ob my Katie. She war so much
+puttier. Gundover's wife couldn't tech my Katie wid a ten foot pole."
+
+"But, Aunt Katie, you have had your trials," said Robert, now that
+Daniel had finished his story; "don't you feel bitter towards these
+people who are fighting to keep you in slavery?"
+
+Aunt Katie turned her face towards the speaker. It was a thoughtful,
+intelligent face, saintly and calm. A face which expressed the idea of a
+soul which had been fearfully tempest tossed, but had passed through
+suffering into peace. Very touching was the look of resignation and hope
+which overspread her features as she replied, with the simple child-like
+faith which she had learned in the darkest hour, "The Lord says, we must
+forgive." And with her that thought, as coming from the lips of Divine
+Love, was enough to settle the whole question of forgiveness of injuries
+and love to enemies.
+
+"Well," said Thomas Anderson, turning to Uncle Daniel, "we can't count
+on yer to go wid us?"
+
+"Boys," said Uncle Daniel, and there was grief in his voice, "I'se
+mighty glad you hab a chance for your freedom; but, ez I tole yer, I
+promised Marse Robert I would stay, an' I mus' be as good as my word.
+Don't you youngsters stay for an ole stager like me. I'm ole an' mos'
+worn out. Freedom wouldn't do much for me, but I want you all to be as
+free as the birds; so, you chillen, take your freedom when you kin get
+it."
+
+"But, Uncle Dan'el, you won't say nothin' 'bout our going, will you?"
+said the youngest of the company.
+
+Uncle Daniel slowly arose. There was a mournful flash in his eye, a
+tremor of emotion in his voice, as he said, "Look yere, boys, de boy dat
+axed dat question war a new comer on dis plantation, but some ob you's
+bin here all ob your lives; did you eber know ob Uncle Dan'el gittin'
+any ob you inter trouble?"
+
+"No, no," exclaimed a chorus of voices, "but many's de time you've held
+off de blows wen de oberseer got too mean, an' cruelized us too much,
+wen Marse Robert war away. An' wen he got back, you made him settle de
+oberseer's hash."
+
+"Well, boys," said Uncle Daniel, with an air of mournful dignity, "I'se
+de same Uncle Dan'el I eber war. Ef any ob you wants to go, I habben't a
+word to say agin it. I specs dem Yankees be all right, but I knows Marse
+Robert, an' I don't know dem, an' I ain't a gwine ter throw away dirty
+water 'til I gits clean."
+
+"Well, Uncle Ben," said Robert, addressing a stalwart man whose towering
+form and darkly flashing eye told that slavery had failed to put the
+crouch in his shoulders or general abjectness into his demeanor, "you
+will go with us, for sure, won't you?"
+
+"Yes," spoke up Tom Anderson, "'cause de trader's done took your wife,
+an' got her for his'n now."
+
+As Ben Tunnel looked at the speaker, a spasm of agony and anger darkened
+his face and distorted his features, as if the blood of some strong
+race were stirring with sudden vigor through his veins. He clutched his
+hands together, as if he were struggling with an invisible foe, and for
+a moment he remained silent. Then suddenly raising his head, he
+exclaimed, "Boys, there's not one of you loves freedom more than I do,
+but--"
+
+"But what?" said Tom. "Do you think white folks is your bes' friends?"
+
+"I'll think so when I lose my senses."
+
+"Well, now, I don't belieb you're 'fraid, not de way I yeard you talkin'
+to de oberseer wen he war threatnin' to hit your mudder. He saw you
+meant business, an' he let her alone. But, what's to hinder you from
+gwine wid us?"
+
+"My mother," he replied, in a low, firm voice. "That is the only thing
+that keeps me from going. If it had not been for her, I would have gone
+long ago. She's all I've got, an' I'm all she's got."
+
+It was touching to see the sorrow on the strong face, to detect the
+pathos and indignation in his voice, as he said, "I used to love Mirandy
+as I love my life. I thought the sun rose and set in her. I never saw a
+handsomer woman than she was. But she fooled me all over the face and
+eyes, and took up with that hell-hound of a trader, Lukens; an' he gave
+her a chance to live easy, to wear fine clothes, an' be waited on like a
+lady. I thought at first I would go crazy, but my poor mammy did all she
+could to comfort me. She would tell me there were as good fish in the
+sea as were ever caught out of it. Many a time I've laid my poor head on
+her lap, when it seemed as if my brain was on fire and my heart was
+almost ready to burst. But in course of time I got over the worst of
+it; an' Mirandy is the first an' last woman that ever fooled me. But
+that dear old mammy of mine, I mean to stick by her as long as there is
+a piece of her. I can't go over to the army an' leave her behind, for if
+I did, an' anything should happen, I would never forgive myself."
+
+"But couldn't you take her with you," said Robert, "the soldiers said we
+could bring our women."
+
+"It isn't that. The Union army is several miles from here, an' my poor
+mammy is so skeery that, if I were trying to get her away and any of
+them Secesh would overtake us, an' begin to question us, she would get
+skeered almost to death, an' break down an' begin to cry, an' then the
+fat would be in the fire. So, while I love freedom more than a child
+loves its mother's milk, I've made up my mind to stay on the plantation.
+I wish, from the bottom of my heart, I could go. But I can't take her
+along with me, an' I don't want to be free and leave her behind in
+slavery. I was only five years old when my master and, as I believe,
+father, sold us both here to this lower country, an' we've been here
+ever since. It's no use talking, I won't leave her to be run over by
+everybody."
+
+A few evenings after this interview, the Union soldiers entered the town
+of C----, and established their headquarters near the home of Thomas
+Anderson.
+
+Out of the little company, almost every one deserted to the Union army,
+leaving Uncle Daniel faithful to his trust, and Ben Tunnel hushing his
+heart's deep aspirations for freedom in a passionate devotion to his
+timid and affectionate mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+ARRIVAL OF THE UNION ARMY.
+
+A few evenings before the stampede of Robert and his friends to the
+army, and as he sat alone in his room reading the latest news from the
+paper he had secreted, he heard a cautious tread and a low tap at his
+window. He opened the door quietly and whispered:--
+
+"Anything new, Tom?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What is it? Come in."
+
+"Well, I'se done bin seen dem Yankees, an' dere ain't a bit of troof in
+dem stories I'se bin yerin 'bout 'em."
+
+"Where did you see 'em?"
+
+"Down in de woods whar Marster tole us to hide. Yesterday ole Marse sent
+for me to come in de settin'-room. An' what do you think? Instead ob
+makin' me stan' wid my hat in my han' while he went froo a whole
+rigamarole, he axed me to sit down, an' he tole me he 'spected de
+Yankees would want us to go inter de army, an' dey would put us in front
+whar we'd all git killed; an' I tole him I didn't want to go, I didn't
+want to git all momached up. An' den he said we'd better go down in de
+woods an' hide. Massa Tom and Frank said we'd better go as quick as eber
+we could. Dey said dem Yankees would put us in dere wagons and make us
+haul like we war mules. Marse Tom ain't libin' at de great house jis'
+now. He's keepin' bachellar's hall."
+
+"Didn't he go to the battle?"
+
+"No; he foun' a pore white man who war hard up for money, an' he got him
+to go."
+
+"But, Tom, you didn't believe these stories about the Yankees. Tom and
+Frank can lie as fast as horses can trot. They wanted to scare you, and
+keep you from going to the Union army."
+
+"I knows dat now, but I didn't 'spect so den."
+
+"Well, when did you see the soldiers? Where are they? And what did they
+say to you?"
+
+"Dey's right down in Gundover's woods. An' de Gineral's got his
+headquarters almos' next door to our house."
+
+"That near? Oh, you don't say so!"
+
+"Yes, I do. An', oh, golly, ain't I so glad! I jis' stole yere to told
+you all 'bout it. Yesterday mornin' I war splittin' some wood to git my
+breakfas', an' I met one ob dem Yankee sogers. Well, I war so skeered,
+my heart flew right up in my mouf, but I made my manners to him and
+said, 'Good mornin', Massa.' He said, 'Good mornin'; but don't call me
+"massa."' Dat war de fust white man I eber seed dat didn't want ter be
+called 'massa,' eben ef he war as pore as Job's turkey. Den I begin to
+feel right sheepish, an' he axed me ef my marster war at home, an' ef he
+war a Reb. I tole him he hadn't gone to de war, but he war Secesh all
+froo, inside and outside. He war too ole to go to de war, but dat he war
+all de time gruntin' an' groanin', an' I 'spected he'd grunt hisself to
+death."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"He said he specs he'll grunt worser dan dat fore dey get froo wid him.
+Den he axed me ef I would hab some breakfas,' an' I said, 'No, t'ank
+you, sir.' 'An' I war jis' as hungry as a dorg, but I war 'feared to
+eat. I war 'feared he war gwine to pizen me."
+
+"Poison you! don't you know the Yankees are our best friends?"
+
+"Well, ef dat's so, I'se mighty glad, cause de woods is full ob dem."
+
+"Now, Tom, I thought you had cut your eye-teeth long enough not to let
+them Anderson boys fool you. Tom, you must not think because a white man
+says a thing, it must be so, and that a colored man's word is no account
+'longside of his. Tom, if ever we get our freedom, we've got to learn to
+trust each other and stick together if we would be a people. Somebody
+else can read the papers as well as Marse Tom and Frank. My ole Miss
+knows I can read the papers, an' she never tries to scare me with big
+whoppers 'bout the Yankees. She knows she can't catch ole birds with
+chaff, so she is just as sweet as a peach to her Bobby. But as soon as I
+get a chance I will play her a trick the devil never did."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I'll leave her. I ain't forgot how she sold my mother from me. Many a
+night I have cried myself to sleep, thinking about her, and when I get
+free I mean to hunt her up."
+
+"Well, I ain't tole you all. De gemman said he war 'cruiting for de
+army; dat Massa Linkum hab set us all free, an' dat he wanted some more
+sogers to put down dem Secesh; dat we should all hab our freedom, our
+wages, an' some kind ob money. I couldn't call it like he did."
+
+"Bounty money," said Robert.
+
+"Yes, dat's jis' what he called it, bounty money. An' I said dat I war
+in for dat, teeth and toe-nails."
+
+Robert Johnson's heart gave a great bound. Was that so? Had that army,
+with freedom emblazoned on its banners, come at last to offer them
+deliverance if they would accept it? Was it a bright, beautiful dream,
+or a blessed reality soon to be grasped by his willing hands? His heart
+grew buoyant with hope; the lightness of his heart gave elasticity to
+his step and sent the blood rejoicingly through his veins. Freedom was
+almost in his grasp, and the future was growing rose-tinted and
+rainbow-hued. All the ties which bound him to his home were as ropes of
+sand, now that freedom had come so near.
+
+When the army was afar off, he had appeared to be light-hearted and
+content with his lot. If asked if he desired his freedom, he would have
+answered, very naively, that he was eating his white bread and believed
+in letting well enough alone; he had no intention of jumping from the
+frying-pan into the fire. But in the depths of his soul the love of
+freedom was an all-absorbing passion; only danger had taught him
+caution. He had heard of terrible vengeance being heaped upon the heads
+of some who had sought their freedom and failed in the attempt. Robert
+knew that he might abandon hope if he incurred the wrath of men whose
+overthrow was only a question of time. It would have been madness and
+folly for him to have attempted an insurrection against slavery, with
+the words of McClellan ringing in his ears: "If you rise I shall put you
+down with an iron hand," and with the home guards ready to quench his
+aspirations for freedom with bayonets and blood. What could a set of
+unarmed and undisciplined men do against the fearful odds which beset
+their path?
+
+Robert waited eagerly and hopefully his chance to join the Union army;
+and was ready and willing to do anything required of him by which he
+could earn his freedom and prove his manhood. He conducted his plans
+with the greatest secrecy. A few faithful and trusted friends stood
+ready to desert with him when the Union army came within hailing
+distance. When it came, there was a stampede to its ranks of men ready
+to serve in any capacity, to labor in the tents, fight on the fields, or
+act as scouts. It was a strange sight to see these black men rallying
+around the Stars and Stripes, when white men were trampling them under
+foot and riddling them with bullets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE RELEASE OF IOLA LEROY.
+
+"Well, boys," said Robert to his trusted friends, as they gathered
+together at a meeting in Gundover's woods, almost under the shadow of
+the Union army, "how many of you are ready to join the army and fight
+for your freedom."
+
+"All ob us."
+
+"The soldiers," continued Robert, "are camped right at the edge of the
+town. The General has his headquarters in the heart of the town, and one
+of the officers told me yesterday that the President had set us all
+free, and that as many as wanted to join the army could come along to
+the camp. So I thought, boys, that I would come and tell you. Now, you
+can take your bag and baggage, and get out of here as soon as you
+choose."
+
+"We'll be ready by daylight," said Tom. "It won't take me long to pack
+up," looking down at his seedy clothes, with a laugh. "I specs ole
+Marse'll be real lonesome when I'm gone. An' won't he be hoppin' mad
+when he finds I'm a goner? I specs he'll hate it like pizen."
+
+"O, well," said Robert, "the best of friends must part. Don't let it
+grieve you."
+
+"I'se gwine to take my wife an' chillen," said one of the company.
+
+"I'se got nobody but myself," said Tom; "but dere's a mighty putty
+young gal dere at Marse Tom's. I wish I could git her away. Dey tells me
+dey's been sellin' her all ober de kentry; but dat she's a reg'lar
+spitfire; dey can't lead nor dribe her."
+
+"Do you think she would go with us?" said Robert.
+
+"I think she's jis' dying to go. Dey say dey can't do nuffin wid her.
+Marse Tom's got his match dis time, and I'se glad ob it. I jis' glories
+in her spunk."
+
+"How did she come there?"
+
+"Oh, Marse bought her ob de trader to keep house for him. But ef you
+seed dem putty white han's ob hern you'd never tink she kept her own
+house, let 'lone anybody else's."
+
+"Do you think you can get her away?"
+
+"I don't know; 'cause Marse Tom keeps her mighty close. My! but she's
+putty. Beautiful long hair comes way down her back; putty blue eyes, an'
+jis' ez white ez anybody's in dis place. I'd jis' wish you could see her
+yoresef. I heerd Marse Tom talkin' 'bout her las' night to his brudder;
+tellin' him she war mighty airish, but he meant to break her in."
+
+An angry curse rose to the lips of Robert, but he repressed it and
+muttered to himself, "Graceless scamp, he ought to have his neck
+stretched." Then turning to Tom, said:--
+
+"Get her, if you possibly can, but you must be mighty mum about it."
+
+"Trus' me for dat," said Tom.
+
+Tom was very anxious to get word to the beautiful but intractable girl
+who was held in durance vile by her reckless and selfish master, who had
+tried in vain to drag her down to his own low level of sin and shame.
+But all Tom's efforts were in vain. Finally he applied to the Commander
+of the post, who immediately gave orders for her release. The next day
+Tom had the satisfaction of knowing that Iola Leroy had been taken as a
+trembling dove from the gory vulture's nest and given a place of
+security. She was taken immediately to the General's headquarters. The
+General was much impressed by her modest demeanor, and surprised to see
+the refinement and beauty she possessed. Could it be possible that this
+young and beautiful girl had been a chattel, with no power to protect
+herself from the highest insults that lawless brutality could inflict
+upon innocent and defenseless womanhood? Could he ever again glory in
+his American citizenship, when any white man, no matter how coarse,
+cruel, or brutal, could buy or sell her for the basest purposes? Was it
+not true that the cause of a hapless people had become entangled with
+the lightnings of heaven, and dragged down retribution upon the land?
+
+The field hospital was needing gentle, womanly ministrations, and Iola
+Leroy, released from the hands of her tormentors, was given a place as
+nurse; a position to which she adapted herself with a deep sense of
+relief. Tom was doubly gratified at the success of his endeavors, which
+had resulted in the rescue of the beautiful young girl and the
+discomfiture of his young master who, in the words of Tom, "was mad
+enough to bite his head off" (a rather difficult physical feat).
+
+Iola, freed from her master's clutches, applied herself readily to her
+appointed tasks. The beautiful, girlish face was full of tender
+earnestness. The fresh, young voice was strangely sympathetic, as if
+some great sorrow had bound her heart in loving compassion to every
+sufferer who needed her gentle ministrations.
+
+Tom Anderson was a man of herculean strength and remarkable courage.
+But, on account of physical defects, instead of enlisting as a soldier,
+he was forced to remain a servant, although he felt as if every nerve in
+his right arm was tingling to strike a blow for freedom. He was well
+versed in the lay of the country, having often driven his master's
+cotton to market when he was a field hand. After he became a coachman,
+he had become acquainted with the different roads and localities of the
+country. Besides, he had often accompanied his young masters on their
+hunting and fishing expeditions. Although he could not fight in the
+army, he proved an invaluable helper. When tents were to be pitched,
+none were more ready to help than he. When burdens were to be borne,
+none were more willing to bend beneath them than Thomas Anderson. When
+the battle-field was to be searched for the wounded and dying, no hand
+was more tender in its ministrations of kindness than his. As a general
+factotum in the army, he was ever ready and willing to serve anywhere
+and at any time, and to gather information from every possible source
+which could be of any service to the Union army. As a Pagan might
+worship a distant star and wish to call it his own, so he loved Iola.
+And he never thought he could do too much for the soldiers who had
+rescued her and were bringing deliverance to his race.
+
+"What do you think of Miss Iola?" Robert asked him one day, as they were
+talking together.
+
+"I jis' think dat she's splendid. Las' week I had to take some of our
+pore boys to de hospital, an' she war dere, lookin' sweet an' putty ez
+an angel, a nussin' dem pore boys, an' ez good to one ez de oder. It
+looks to me ez ef dey ralely lob'd her shadder. She sits by 'em so
+patient, an' writes 'em sech nice letters to der frens, an' yit she
+looks so heart-broke an' pitiful, it jis' gits to me, an' makes me mos'
+ready to cry. I'm so glad dat Marse Tom had to gib her up. He war too
+mean to eat good victuals."
+
+"He ought," said Robert, "to be made to live on herrings' heads and cold
+potatoes. It makes my blood boil just to think that he was going to have
+that lovely looking young girl whipped for his devilment. He ought to be
+ashamed to hold up his head among respectable people."
+
+"I tell you, Bob, de debil will neber git his own till he gits him. When
+I seed how he war treating her I neber rested till I got her away. He
+buyed her, he said, for his housekeeper; as many gals as dere war on de
+plantation, why didn't he git one ob dem to keep house, an' not dat nice
+lookin' young lady? Her han's look ez ef she neber did a day's work in
+her life. One day when he com'd down to breakfas,' he chucked her under
+de chin, an' tried to put his arm roun' her waist. But she jis' frew it
+off like a chunk ob fire. She looked like a snake had bit her. Her eyes
+fairly spit fire. Her face got red ez blood, an' den she turned so pale
+I thought she war gwine to faint, but she didn't, an' I yered her say,
+'I'll die fust.' I war mad 'nough to stan' on my head. I could hab
+tore'd him all to pieces wen he said he'd hab her whipped."
+
+"Did he do it?"
+
+"I don't know. But he's mean 'nough to do enythin'. Why, dey say she
+war sole seben times in six weeks, 'cause she's so putty, but dat she
+war game to de las'."
+
+"Well, Tom," said Robert, "getting that girl away was one of the best
+things you ever did in your life."
+
+"I think so, too. Not dat I specs enytin' ob it. I don't spose she would
+think ob an ugly chap like me; but it does me good to know dat Marse Tom
+ain't got her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+ROBERT JOHNSON'S PROMOTION AND RELIGION.
+
+Robert Johnson, being able to meet the army requirements, was enlisted
+as a substitute to help fill out the quota of a Northern regiment. With
+his intelligence, courage, and prompt obedience, he rose from the ranks
+and became lieutenant of a colored company. He was daring, without being
+rash; prompt, but not thoughtless; firm, without being harsh. Kind and
+devoted to the company he drilled, he soon won the respect of his
+superior officers and the love of his comrades.
+
+"Johnson," said a young officer, Captain Sybil, of Maine, who had become
+attached to Robert, "what is the use of your saying you're a colored
+man, when you are as white as I am, and as brave a man as there is among
+us. Why not quit this company, and take your place in the army just the
+same as a white man? I know your chances for promotion would be better."
+
+"Captain, you may doubt my word, but to-day I would rather be a
+lieutenant in my company than a captain in yours."
+
+"I don't understand you."
+
+"Well, Captain, when a man's been colored all his life it comes a little
+hard for him to get white all at once. Were I to try it, I would feel
+like a cat in a strange garret. Captain, I think my place is where I am
+most needed. You do not need me in your ranks, and my company does.
+They are excellent fighters, but they need a leader. To silence a
+battery, to capture a flag, to take a fortification, they will rush into
+the jaws of death."
+
+"Yes, I have often wondered at their bravery."
+
+"Captain, these battles put them on their mettle. They have been so long
+taught that they are nothing and nobody, that they seem glad to prove
+they are something and somebody."
+
+"But, Johnson, you do not look like them, you do not talk like them. It
+is a burning shame to have held such a man as you in slavery."
+
+"I don't think it was any worse to have held me in slavery than the
+blackest man in the South."
+
+"You are right, Johnson. The color of a man's skin has nothing to do
+with the possession of his rights."
+
+"Now, there is Tom Anderson," said Robert, "he is just as black as black
+can be. He has been bought and sold like a beast, and yet there is not a
+braver man in all the company. I know him well. He is a noble-hearted
+fellow. True as steel. I love him like a brother. And I believe Tom
+would risk his life for me any day. He don't know anything about his
+father or mother. He was sold from them before he could remember. He can
+read a little. He used to take lessons from a white gardener in
+Virginia. He would go between the hours of 9 P.M. and 4 A.M. He got a
+book of his own, tore it up, greased the pages, and hid them in his hat.
+Then if his master had ever knocked his hat off he would have thought
+them greasy papers, and not that Tom was carrying his library on his
+head. I had another friend who lived near us. When he was nineteen
+years old he did not know how many letters there were in the ABC's. One
+night, when his work was done, his boss came into his cabin and saw him
+with a book in his hand. He threatened to give him five hundred lashes
+if he caught him again with a book, and said he hadn't work enough to
+do. He was getting out logs, and his task was ten logs a day. His
+employer threatened to increase it to twelve. He said it just harassed
+him; it set him on fire. He thought there must be something good in that
+book if the white man didn't want him to learn. One day he had an errand
+in the kitchen, and he heard one of the colored girls going over the
+ABC's. Here was the key to the forbidden knowledge. She had heard the
+white children saying them, and picked them up by heart, but did not
+know them by sight. He was not content with that, but sold his cap for a
+book and wore a cloth on his head instead. He got the sounds of the
+letters by heart, then cut off the bark of a tree, carved the letters on
+the smooth inside, and learned them. He wanted to learn how to write. He
+had charge of a warehouse where he had a chance to see the size and form
+of letters. He made the beach of the river his copybook, and thus he
+learned to write. Tom never got very far with his learning, but I used
+to get the papers and tell him all I knew about the war."
+
+"How did you get the papers?"
+
+"I used to have very good privileges for a slave. All of our owners were
+not alike. Some of them were quite clever, and others were worse than
+git out. I used to get the morning papers to sell to the boarders and
+others, and when I got them I would contrive to hide a paper, and let
+some of the fellow-servants know how things were going on. And our
+owners thought we cared nothing about what was going on."
+
+"How was that? I thought you were not allowed to hold meetings unless a
+white man were present."
+
+"That was so. But we contrived to hold secret meetings in spite of their
+caution. We knew whom we could trust. My ole Miss wasn't mean like some
+of them. She never wanted the patrollers around prowling in our cabins,
+and poking their noses into our business. Her husband was an awful
+drunkard. He ran through every cent he could lay his hands on, and she
+was forced to do something to keep the wolf from the door, so she set up
+a boarding-house. But she didn't take in Tom, Dick, and Harry. Nobody
+but the big bugs stopped with her. She taught me to read and write, and
+to cast up accounts. It was so handy for her to have some one who could
+figure up her accounts, and read or write a note, if she were from home
+and wanted the like done. She once told her cousin how I could write and
+figure up. And what do you think her cousin said?"
+
+"'Pleased,' I suppose, 'to hear it.'"
+
+"Not a bit of it. She said, if I belonged to her, she would cut off my
+thumbs; her husband said, 'Oh, then he couldn't pick cotton.' As to my
+poor thumbs, it did not seem to be taken into account what it would cost
+me to lose them. My ole Miss used to have a lot of books. She would let
+me read any one of them except a novel. She wanted to take care of my
+soul, but she wasn't taking care of her own."
+
+"Wasn't she religious?"
+
+"She went for it. I suppose she was as good as most of them. She said
+her prayers and went to church, but I don't know that that made her any
+better. I never did take much stock in white folks' religion."
+
+"Why, Robert, I'm afraid you are something of an infidel."
+
+"No, Captain, I believe in the real, genuine religion. I ain't got much
+myself, but I respect them that have. We had on our place a dear, old
+saint, named Aunt Kizzy. She was a happy soul. She had seen hard times,
+but was what I call a living epistle. I've heard her tell how her only
+child had been sold from her, when the man who bought herself did not
+want to buy her child. Poor little fellow! he was only two years old. I
+asked her one day how she felt when her child was taken away. 'I felt,'
+she said, 'as if I was going to my grave. But I knew if I couldn't get
+justice here, I could get it in another world.'"
+
+"That was faith," said Captain Sybil, as if speaking to himself, "a
+patient waiting for death to redress the wrongs of life."
+
+"Many a time," continued Robert, "have I heard her humming to herself in
+the kitchen and saying, 'I has my trials, ups and downs, but it won't
+allers be so. I specs one day to wing and wing wid de angels,
+Hallelujah! Den I specs to hear a voice sayin', "Poor ole Kizzy, she's
+done de bes' she kin. Go down, Gabriel, an' tote her in." Den I specs to
+put on my golden slippers, my long white robe, an' my starry crown, an'
+walk dem golden streets, Hallelujah!' I've known that dear, old soul to
+travel going on two miles, after her work was done, to have some one
+read to her. Her favorite chapter began with, 'Let not your heart be
+troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in Me.'"
+
+"I have been deeply impressed," said Captain Sybil, "with the child-like
+faith of some of these people. I do not mean to say that they are
+consistent Christians, but I do think that this faith has in a measure
+underlain the life of the race. It has been a golden thread woven amid
+the sombre tissues of their lives. A ray of light shimmering amid the
+gloom of their condition. And what would they have been without it?"
+
+"I don't know. But I know what she was with it. And I believe if there
+are any saints in glory, Aunt Kizzy is one of them."
+
+"She is dead, then?"
+
+"Yes, went all right, singing and rejoicing until the last,
+'Troubles over, troubles over, and den my troubles will be over. We'll
+walk de golden streets all 'roun' in de New Jerusalem.' Now, Captain,
+that's the kind of religion that I want. Not that kind which could ride
+to church on Sundays, and talk so solemn with the minister about heaven
+and good things, then come home and light down on the servants like a
+thousand of bricks. I have no use for it. I don't believe in it. I never
+did and I never will. If any man wants to save my soul he ain't got to
+beat my body. That ain't the kind of religion I'm looking for. I ain't
+got a bit of use for it. Now, Captain, ain't I right?"
+
+"Well, yes, Robert, I think you are more than half right. You ought to
+know my dear, old mother who lives in Maine. We have had colored company
+at our house, and I never saw her show the least difference between her
+colored and white guests. She is a Quaker preacher, and don't believe
+in war, but when the rest of the young men went to the front, I wanted
+to go also. So I thought it all over, and there seemed to be no way out
+of slavery except through the war. I had been taught to hate war and
+detest slavery. Now the time had come when I could not help the war, but
+I could strike a blow for freedom. So I told my mother I was going to
+the front, that I expected to be killed, but I went to free the slave.
+It went hard with her. But I thought that I ought to come, and I believe
+my mother's prayers are following me."
+
+"Captain," said Robert, rising, "I am glad that I have heard your story.
+I think that some of these Northern soldiers do two things--hate slavery
+and hate niggers."
+
+"I am afraid that is so with some of them. They would rather be whipped
+by Rebels than conquer with negroes. Oh, I heard a soldier," said
+Captain Sybil, "say, when the colored men were being enlisted, that he
+would break his sword and resign. But he didn't do either. After Colonel
+Shaw led his charge at Fort Wagner, and died in the conflict, he got
+bravely over his prejudices. The conduct of the colored troops there and
+elsewhere has done much to turn public opinion in their favor. I suppose
+any white soldier would rather have his black substitute receive the
+bullets than himself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+TOM ANDERSON'S DEATH.
+
+"Where is Tom?" asked Captain Sybil; "I have not seen him for several
+hours."
+
+"He's gone down the sound with some of the soldiers," replied Robert.
+"They wanted Tom to row them."
+
+"I am afraid those boys will get into trouble, and the Rebs will pick
+them off," responded Sybil.
+
+"O, I hope not," answered Robert.
+
+"I hope not, too; but those boys are too venturesome."
+
+"Tom knows the lay of the land better than any of us," said Robert. "He
+is the most wide-awake and gamiest man I know. I reckon when the war is
+over Tom will be a preacher. Did you ever hear him pray?"
+
+"No; is he good at that?"
+
+"First-rate," continued Robert. "It would do you good to hear him. He
+don't allow any cursing and swearing when he's around. And what he says
+is law and gospel with the boys. But he's so good-natured; and they
+can't get mad at him."
+
+"Yes, Robert, there is not a man in our regiment I would sooner trust
+than Tom. Last night, when he brought in that wounded scout, he couldn't
+have been more tender if he had been a woman. How gratefully the poor
+fellow looked in Tom's face as he laid him down so carefully and
+staunched the blood which had been spurting out of him. Tom seemed to
+know it was an artery which had been cut, and he did just the right
+thing to stop the bleeding. He knew there wasn't a moment to be lost. He
+wasn't going to wait for the doctor. I have often heard that colored
+people are ungrateful, but I don't think Tom's worst enemy would say
+that about him."
+
+"Captain," said Robert, with a tone of bitterness in his voice, "what
+had we to be grateful for? For ages of poverty, ignorance, and slavery?
+I think if anybody should be grateful, it is the people who have
+enslaved us and lived off our labor for generations. Captain, I used to
+know a poor old woman who couldn't bear to hear any one play on the
+piano."
+
+"Is that so? Why, I always heard that colored people were a musical
+race."
+
+"So we are; but that poor woman's daughter was sold, and her mistress
+took the money to buy a piano. Her mother could never bear to hear a
+sound from it."
+
+"Poor woman!" exclaimed Captain Sybil, sympathetically; "I suppose it
+seemed as if the wail of her daughter was blending with the tones of the
+instrument. I think, Robert, there is a great deal more in the colored
+people than we give them credit for. Did you know Captain Sellers?"
+
+"The officer who escaped from prison and got back to our lines?" asked
+Robert.
+
+"Yes. Well, he had quite an experience in trying to escape. He came to
+an aged couple, who hid him in their cabin and shared their humble food
+with him. They gave him some corn-bread, bacon, and coffee which he
+thought was made of scorched bran. But he said that he never ate a meal
+that he relished more than the one he took with them. Just before he
+went they knelt down and prayed with him. It seemed as if his very hair
+stood on his head, their prayer was so solemn. As he was going away the
+man took some shingles and nailed them on his shoes to throw the
+bloodhounds off his track. I don't think he will ever cease to feel
+kindly towards colored people. I do wonder what has become of the boys?
+What can keep them so long?"
+
+Just as Captain Sybil and Robert were wondering at the delay of Tom and
+the soldiers they heard the measured tread of men who were slowly
+bearing a burden. They were carrying Tom Anderson to the hospital,
+fearfully wounded, and nigh to death. His face was distorted, and the
+blood was streaming from his wounds. His respiration was faint, his
+pulse hurried, as if life were trembling on its frailest cords.
+
+Robert and Captain Sybil hastened at once towards the wounded man. On
+Robert's face was a look of intense anguish, as he bent pityingly over
+his friend.
+
+"O, this is dreadful! How did it happen?" cried Robert.
+
+Captain Sybil, pressing anxiously forward, repeated Robert's question.
+
+"Captain," said one of the young soldiers, advancing and saluting his
+superior officer, "we were all in the boat when it struck against a mud
+bank, and there was not strength enough among us to shove her back into
+the water. Just then the Rebels opened fire upon us. For awhile we lay
+down in the boat, but still they kept firing. Tom took in the whole
+situation, and said: 'Someone must die to get us out of this. I
+mought's well be him as any. You are soldiers and can fight. If they
+kill me, it is nuthin'.' So Tom leaped out to shove the boat into the
+water. Just then the Rebel bullets began to rain around him. He received
+seven or eight of them, and I'm afraid there is no hope for him."
+
+"O, Tom, I wish you hadn't gone. O, Tom! Tom!" cried Robert, in tones of
+agony.
+
+A gleam of grateful recognition passed over the drawn features of Tom,
+as the wail of his friend fell on his ear. He attempted to speak, but
+the words died upon his lips, and he became unconscious.
+
+"Well," said Captain Sybil, "put him in one of the best wards. Give him
+into Miss Leroy's care. If good nursing can win him back to life, he
+shall not want for any care or pains that she can bestow. Send
+immediately for Dr. Gresham."
+
+Robert followed his friend into the hospital, tenderly and carefully
+helped to lay him down, and remained awhile, gazing in silent grief upon
+the sufferer. Then he turned to go, leaving him in the hands of Iola,
+but hoping against hope that his wounds would not be fatal.
+
+With tender devotion Iola watched her faithful friend. He recognized her
+when restored to consciousness, and her presence was as balm to his
+wounds. He smiled faintly, took her hand in his, stroked it tenderly,
+looked wistfully into her face, and said, "Miss Iola, I ain't long fer
+dis! I'se 'most home!"
+
+"Oh, no," said Iola, "I hope that you will soon get over this trouble,
+and live many long and happy days."
+
+"No, Miss Iola, it's all ober wid me. I'se gwine to glory; gwine to
+glory; gwine to ring dem charmin' bells. Tell all de boys to meet me in
+heben; dat dey mus' 'list in de hebenly war."
+
+"O, Mr. Tom," said Iola, tenderly, "do not talk of leaving me. You are
+the best friend I have had since I was torn from my mother. I should be
+so lonely without you."
+
+"Dere's a frien' dat sticks closer dan a brudder. He will be wid yer in
+de sixt' trial, an' in de sebbent' he'll not fo'sake yer."
+
+"Yes," answered Iola, "I know that. He is all our dependence. But I
+can't help grieving when I see you suffering so. But, dear friend, be
+quiet, and try to go to sleep."
+
+"I'll do enythin' fer yer, Miss Iola."
+
+Tom closed his eyes and lay quiet. Tenderly and anxiously Iola watched
+over him as the hours waned away. The doctor came, shook his head
+gravely, and, turning to Iola, said, "There is no hope, but do what you
+can to alleviate his sufferings."
+
+As Iola gazed upon the kind but homely features of Tom, she saw his eyes
+open and an unexpressed desire upon his face.
+
+Tenderly and sadly bending over him, with tears in her dark, luminous
+eyes, she said, "Is there anything I can do for you?"
+
+"Yes," said Tom, with laboring breath; "let me hole yore han', an' sing
+'Ober Jordan inter glory' an' 'We'll anchor bye and bye.'"
+
+Iola laid her hand gently in the rough palm of the dying man, and, with
+a tremulous voice, sang the parting hymns.
+
+Tenderly she wiped the death damps from his dusky brow, and imprinted
+upon it a farewell kiss. Gratitude and affection lit up the dying eye,
+which seemed to be gazing into the eternities. Just then Robert entered
+the room, and, seating himself quietly by Tom's bedside, read the death
+signs in his face.
+
+"Good-bye, Robert," said Tom, "meet me in de kingdom." Suddenly a look
+of recognition and rapture lit up his face, and he murmured, "Angels,
+bright angels, all's well, all's well!"
+
+Slowly his hand released its pressure, a peaceful calm overspread his
+countenance, and without a sigh or murmur Thomas Anderson, Iola's
+faithful and devoted friend, passed away, leaving the world so much
+poorer for her than it was before. Just then Dr. Gresham, the hospital
+physician, came to the bedside, felt for the pulse which would never
+throb again, and sat down in silence by the cot.
+
+"What do you think, Doctor," said Iola, "has he fainted?"
+
+"No," said the doctor, "poor fellow! he is dead."
+
+Iola bowed her head in silent sorrow, and then relieved the anguish of
+her heart by a flood of tears. Robert rose, and sorrowfully left the
+room.
+
+Iola, with tearful eyes and aching heart, clasped the cold hands over
+the still breast, closed the waxen lid over the eye which had once
+beamed with kindness or flashed with courage, and then went back, after
+the burial, to her daily round of duties, feeling the sad missing of
+something from her life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+THE MYSTIFIED DOCTOR.
+
+"Colonel," said Dr. Gresham to Col. Robinson, the commander of the post,
+"I am perfectly mystified by Miss Leroy."
+
+"What is the matter with her?" asked Col. Robinson. "Is she not faithful
+to her duties and obedient to your directions?"
+
+"Faithful is not the word to express her tireless energy and devotion to
+her work," responded Dr. Gresham. "She must have been a born nurse to
+put such enthusiasm into her work."
+
+"Why, Doctor, what is the matter with you? You talk like a lover."
+
+A faint flush rose to the cheek of Dr. Gresham as he smiled, and said,
+"Oh! come now, Colonel, can't a man praise a woman without being in love
+with her?"
+
+"Of course he can," said Col. Robinson; "but I know where such
+admiration is apt to lead. I've been there myself. But, Doctor, had you
+not better defer your love-making till you're out of the woods?"
+
+"I assure you, Colonel, I am not thinking of love or courtship. That is
+the business of the drawing-room, and not of the camp. But she did
+mystify me last night."
+
+"How so?" asked Col. Robinson.
+
+"When Tom was dying," responded the doctor, "I saw that beautiful and
+refined young lady bend over and kiss him. When she found that he was
+dead, she just cried as if her heart was breaking. Well, that was a new
+thing to me. I can eat with colored people, walk, talk, and fight with
+them, but kissing them is something I don't hanker after."
+
+"And yet you saw Miss Leroy do it?"
+
+"Yes; and that puzzles me. She is one of the most refined and lady-like
+women I ever saw. I hear she is a refugee, but she does not look like
+the other refugees who have come to our camp. Her accent is slightly
+Southern, but her manner is Northern. She is self-respecting without
+being supercilious; quiet, without being dull. Her voice is low and
+sweet, yet at times there are tones of such passionate tenderness in it
+that you would think some great sorrow has darkened and overshadowed her
+life. Without being the least gloomy, her face at times is pervaded by
+an air of inexpressible sadness. I sometimes watch her when she is not
+aware that I am looking at her, and it seems as if a whole volume was
+depicted on her countenance. When she smiles, there is a longing in her
+eyes which is never satisfied. I cannot understand how a Southern lady,
+whose education and manners stamp her as a woman of fine culture and
+good breeding, could consent to occupy the position she so faithfully
+holds. It is a mystery I cannot solve. Can you?"
+
+"I think I can," answered Col. Robinson.
+
+"Will you tell me?" queried the doctor.
+
+"Yes, on one condition."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Everlasting silence."
+
+"I promise," said the doctor. "The secret between us shall be as deep as
+the sea."
+
+"She has not requested secrecy, but at present, for her sake, I do not
+wish the secret revealed. Miss Leroy was a slave."
+
+"Oh, no," said Dr. Gresham, starting to his feet, "it can't be so! A
+woman as white as she a slave?"
+
+"Yes, it is so," continued the Colonel. "In these States the child
+follows the condition of its mother. This beautiful and accomplished
+girl was held by one of the worst Rebels in town. Tom told me of it and
+I issued orders for her release."
+
+"Well, well! Is that so?" said Dr. Gresham, thoughtfully stroking his
+beard. "Wonders will never cease. Why, I was just beginning to think
+seriously of her."
+
+"What's to hinder your continuing to think?" asked Col. Robinson.
+
+"What you tell me changes the whole complexion of affairs," replied the
+doctor.
+
+"If that be so I am glad I told you before you got head over heels in
+love."
+
+"Yes," said Dr. Gresham, absently.
+
+Dr. Gresham was a member of a wealthy and aristocratic family, proud of
+its lineage, which it could trace through generations of good blood to
+its ancestral isle. He had become deeply interested in Iola before he
+had heard her story, but after it had been revealed to him he tried to
+banish her from his mind; but his constant observation of her only
+increased his interest and admiration. The deep pathos of her story, the
+tenderness of her ministrations, bestowed alike on black and white, and
+the sad loneliness of her condition, awakened within him a desire to
+defend and protect her all through her future life. The fierce clashing
+of war had not taken all the romance out of his nature. In Iola he saw
+realized his ideal of the woman whom he was willing to marry. A woman,
+tender, strong, and courageous, and rescued only by the strong arm of
+his Government from a fate worse than death. She was young in years, but
+old in sorrow; one whom a sad destiny had changed from a light-hearted
+girl to a heroic woman. As he observed her, he detected an undertone of
+sorrow in her most cheerful words, and observed a quick flushing and
+sudden paling of her cheek, as if she were living over scenes that were
+thrilling her soul with indignation or chilling her heart with horror.
+As nurse and physician, Iola and Dr. Gresham were constantly thrown
+together. His friends sent him magazines and books, which he gladly
+shared with her. The hospital was a sad place. Mangled forms, stricken
+down in the flush of their prime and energy; pale young corpses,
+sacrificed on the altar of slavery, constantly drained on her
+sympathies. Dr. Gresham was glad to have some reading matter which might
+divert her mind from the memories of her mournful past, and also furnish
+them both with interesting themes of conversation in their moments of
+relaxation from the harrowing scenes through which they were constantly
+passing. Without any effort or consciousness on her part, his friendship
+ripened into love. To him her presence was a pleasure, her absence a
+privation; and her loneliness drew deeply upon his sympathy. He would
+have merited his own self-contempt if, by word or deed, he had done
+anything to take advantage of her situation. All the manhood and
+chivalry of his nature rose in her behalf, and, after carefully
+revolving the matter, he resolved to win her for his bride, bury her
+secret in his Northern home, and hide from his aristocratic relations
+all knowledge of her mournful past. One day he said to Iola:--
+
+"This hospital life is telling on you. Your strength is failing, and
+although you possess a wonderful amount of physical endurance, you must
+not forget that saints have bodies and dwell in tabernacles of clay,
+just the same as we common mortals."
+
+"Compliments aside," she said, smiling; "what are you driving at,
+Doctor?"
+
+"I mean," he replied, "that you are running down, and if you do not quit
+and take some rest you will be our patient instead of our nurse. You'd
+better take a furlough, go North, and return after the first frost."
+
+"Doctor, if that is your only remedy," replied Iola, "I am afraid that I
+am destined to die at my post. I have no special friends in the North,
+and no home but this in the South. I am homeless and alone."
+
+There was something so sad, almost despairing in her tones, in the
+drooping of her head, and the quivering of her lip, that they stirred
+Dr. Gresham's heart with sudden pity, and, drawing nearer to her, he
+said, "Miss Leroy, you need not be all alone. Let me claim the privilege
+of making your life bright and happy. Iola, I have loved you ever since
+I have seen your devotion to our poor, sick boys. How faithfully you, a
+young and gracious girl, have stood at your post and performed your
+duties. And now I ask, will you not permit me to clasp hands with you
+for life? I do not ask for a hasty reply. Give yourself time to think
+over what I have proposed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+EUGENE LEROY AND ALFRED LORRAINE.
+
+Nearly twenty years before the war, two young men, of French and Spanish
+descent, sat conversing on a large verandah which surrounded an ancient
+home on the Mississippi River. It was French in its style of
+architecture, large and rambling, with no hint of modern improvements.
+
+The owner of the house was the only heir of a Creole planter. He had
+come into possession of an inheritance consisting of vast baronial
+estates, bank stock, and a large number of slaves. Eugene Leroy, being
+deprived of his parents, was left, at an early age, to the care of a
+distant relative, who had sent him to school and college, and who
+occasionally invited him to spend his vacations at his home. But Eugene
+generally declined his invitations, as he preferred spending his
+vacations at the watering places in the North, with their fashionable
+and not always innocent gayeties. Young, vivacious, impulsive, and
+undisciplined, without the restraining influence of a mother's love or
+the guidance of a father's hand, Leroy found himself, when his college
+days were over, in the dangerous position of a young man with vast
+possessions, abundant leisure, unsettled principles, and uncontrolled
+desires. He had no other object than to extract from life its most
+seductive draughts of ease and pleasure. His companion, who sat opposite
+him on the verandah, quietly smoking a cigar, was a remote cousin, a
+few years older than himself, the warmth of whose Southern temperament
+had been modified by an infusion of Northern blood.
+
+Eugene was careless, liberal, and impatient of details, while his
+companion and cousin, Alfred Lorraine, was selfish, eager, keen, and
+alert; also hard, cold, methodical, and ever ready to grasp the main
+chance. Yet, notwithstanding the difference between them, they had
+formed a warm friendship for each other.
+
+"Alfred," said Eugene, "I am going to be married."
+
+Lorraine opened his eyes with sudden wonder, and exclaimed: "Well,
+that's the latest thing out! Who is the fortunate lady who has bound you
+with her silken fetters? Is it one of those beautiful Creole girls who
+were visiting Augustine's plantation last winter? I watched you during
+our visit there and thought that you could not be proof against their
+attractions. Which is your choice? It would puzzle me to judge between
+the two. They had splendid eyes, dark, luminous, and languishing; lovely
+complexions and magnificent hair. Both were delightful in their manners,
+refined and cultured, with an air of vivacity mingled with their repose
+of manner which was perfectly charming. As the law only allows us one,
+which is your choice? Miss Annette has more force than her sister, and
+if I could afford the luxury of a wife she would be my choice."
+
+"Ah, Alf," said Eugene, "I see that you are a practical business man. In
+marrying you want a wife to assist you as an efficient plantation
+mistress. One who would tolerate no waste in the kitchen and no disorder
+in the parlor."
+
+"Exactly so," responded Lorraine; "I am too poor to marry a mere parlor
+ornament. You can afford to do it; I cannot."
+
+"Nonsense, if I were as poor as a church mouse I would marry the woman I
+love."
+
+"Very fine sentiments," said Lorraine, "and were I as rich as you I
+would indulge in them also. You know, when my father died I had great
+expectations. We had always lived in good style, and I never thought for
+a moment he was not a rich man, but when his estate was settled I found
+it was greatly involved, and I was forced to face an uncertain future,
+with scarcely a dollar to call my own. Land, negroes, cattle, and horses
+all went under the hammer. The only thing I retained was the education I
+received at the North; that was my father's best investment, and all my
+stock in trade. With that only as an outfit, it would be madness for me
+to think of marrying one of those lovely girls. They remind me of
+beautiful canary birds, charming and pretty, but not fitted for the wear
+and tear of plantation life. Well, which is your choice?"
+
+"Neither," replied Eugene.
+
+"Then, is it that magnificent looking widow from New Orleans, whom we
+met before you had that terrible spell of sickness and to whom you
+appeared so devoted?"
+
+"Not at all. I have not heard from her since that summer. She was
+fascinating and handsome, but fearfully high strung."
+
+"Were you afraid of her?"
+
+"No; but I valued my happiness too much to trust it in her hands."
+
+"Sour grapes!" said Lorraine.
+
+"No! but I think that slavery and the lack of outside interests are
+beginning to tell on the lives of our women. They lean too much on their
+slaves, have too much irresponsible power in their hands, are narrowed
+and compressed by the routine of plantation life and the lack of
+intellectual stimulus."
+
+"Yes, Eugene, when I see what other women are doing in the fields of
+literature and art, I cannot help thinking an amount of brain power has
+been held in check among us. Yet I cannot abide those Northern women,
+with their suffrage views and abolition cant. They just shock me."
+
+"But your mother was a Northern woman," said Eugene.
+
+"Yes; but she got bravely over her Northern ideas. As I remember her,
+she was just as much a Southerner as if she had been to the manor born.
+She came here as a school-teacher, but soon after she came she married
+my father. He was easy and indulgent with his servants, and held them
+with a very loose rein. But my mother was firm and energetic. She made
+the niggers move around. No shirking nor dawdling with her. When my
+father died, she took matters in hand, but she only outlived him a few
+months. If she had lived I believe that she would have retrieved our
+fortune. I know that she had more executive ability than my father. He
+was very squeamish about selling his servants, but she would have put
+every one of them in her pocket before permitting them to eat her out of
+house and home. But whom _are_ you going to marry?"
+
+"A young lady who graduates from a Northern seminary next week,"
+responded Eugene.
+
+"I think you are very selfish," said Lorraine. "You might have invited
+a fellow to go with you to be your best man."
+
+"The wedding is to be strictly private. The lady whom I am to marry has
+negro blood in her veins."
+
+"The devil she has!" exclaimed Lorraine, starting to his feet, and
+looking incredulously on the face of Leroy. "Are you in earnest? Surely
+you must be jesting."
+
+"I am certainly in earnest," answered Eugene Leroy. "I mean every word I
+say."
+
+"Oh, it can't be possible! Are you mad?" exclaimed Lorraine.
+
+"Never was saner in my life."
+
+"What under heaven could have possessed you to do such a foolish thing?
+Where did she come from."
+
+"Right here, on this plantation. But I have educated and manumitted her,
+and I intend marrying her."
+
+"Why, Eugene, it is impossible that you can have an idea of marrying one
+of your slaves. Why, man, she is your property, to have and to hold to
+all intents and purposes. Are you not satisfied with the power and
+possession the law gives you?"
+
+"No. Although the law makes her helpless in my hands, to me her
+defenselessness is her best defense."
+
+"Eugene, we have known each other all of our lives, and, although I have
+always regarded you as eccentric, I never saw you so completely off your
+balance before. The idea of you, with your proud family name, your vast
+wealth in land and negroes, intending to marry one of them, is a mystery
+I cannot solve. Do explain to me why you are going to take this
+extremely strange and foolish step."
+
+"You never saw Marie?"
+
+"No; and I don't want to."
+
+"She is very beautiful. In the North no one would suspect that she has
+one drop of negro blood in her veins, but here, where I am known, to
+marry her is to lose caste. I could live with her, and not incur much if
+any social opprobrium. Society would wink at the transgression, even if
+after she had become the mother of my children I should cast her off and
+send her and them to the auction block."
+
+"Men," replied Lorraine, "would merely shrug their shoulders; women
+would say you had been sowing your wild oats. Your money, like charity,
+would cover a multitude of faults."
+
+"But if I make her my lawful wife and recognize her children as my
+legitimate heirs, I subject myself to social ostracism and a senseless
+persecution. We Americans boast of freedom, and yet here is a woman whom
+I love as I never loved any other human being, but both law and public
+opinion debar me from following the inclination of my heart. She is
+beautiful, faithful, and pure, and yet all that society will tolerate is
+what I would scorn to do."
+
+"But has not society the right to guard the purity of its blood by the
+rigid exclusion of an alien race?"
+
+"Excluding it! How?" asked Eugene.
+
+"By debarring it from social intercourse."
+
+"Perhaps it has," continued Eugene, "but should not society have a
+greater ban for those who, by consorting with an alien race, rob their
+offspring of a right to their names and to an inheritance in their
+property, and who fix their social status among an enslaved and outcast
+race? Don't eye me so curiously; I am not losing my senses."
+
+"I think you have done that already," said Lorraine. "Don't you know
+that if she is as fair as a lily, beautiful as a houri, and chaste as
+ice, that still she is a negro?"
+
+"Oh, come now; she isn't much of a negro."
+
+"It doesn't matter, however. One drop of negro blood in her veins curses
+all the rest."
+
+"I know it," said Eugene, sadly, "but I have weighed the consequences,
+and am prepared to take them."
+
+"Well, Eugene, your course is _so_ singular! I do wish that you would
+tell me why you take this unprecedented step?"
+
+Eugene laid aside his cigar, looked thoughtfully at Lorraine, and said,
+"Well, Alfred, as we are kinsmen and life-long friends, I will not
+resent your asking my reason for doing that which seems to you the
+climax of absurdity, and if you will have the patience to listen I will
+tell you."
+
+"Proceed, I am all attention."
+
+"My father died," said Eugene, "as you know, when I was too young to
+know his loss or feel his care and, being an only child, I was petted
+and spoiled. I grew up to be wayward, self-indulgent, proud, and
+imperious. I went from home and made many friends both at college and in
+foreign lands. I was well supplied with money and, never having been
+forced to earn it, was ignorant of its value and careless of its use. My
+lavish expenditures and liberal benefactions attracted to me a number
+of parasites, and men older than myself led me into the paths of vice,
+and taught me how to gather the flowers of sin which blossom around the
+borders of hell. In a word, I left my home unwarned and unarmed against
+the seductions of vice. I returned an initiated devotee to debasing
+pleasures. Years of my life were passed in foreign lands; years in which
+my soul slumbered and seemed pervaded with a moral paralysis; years, the
+memory of which fills my soul with sorrow and shame. I went to the
+capitals of the old world to see life, but in seeing life I became
+acquainted with death, the death of true manliness and self-respect. You
+look astonished; but I tell you, Alf, there is many a poor clod-hopper,
+on whom are the dust and grime of unremitting toil, who feels more
+self-respect and true manliness than many of us with our family
+prestige, social position, and proud ancestral halls. After I had lived
+abroad for years, I returned a broken-down young man, prematurely old,
+my constitution a perfect wreck. A life of folly and dissipation was
+telling fearfully upon me. My friends shrank from me in dismay. I was
+sick nigh unto death, and had it not been for Marie's care I am certain
+that I should have died. She followed me down to the borders of the
+grave, and won me back to life and health. I was slow in recovering and,
+during the time, I had ample space for reflection, and the past unrolled
+itself before me. I resolved, over the wreck and ruin of my past life,
+to build a better and brighter future. Marie had a voice of remarkable
+sweetness, although it lacked culture. Often when I was nervous and
+restless I would have her sing some of those weird and plaintive
+melodies which she had learned from the plantation negroes. Sometimes I
+encouraged her to talk, and I was surprised at the native vigor of her
+intellect. By degrees I became acquainted with her history. She was all
+alone in the world. She had no recollection of her father, but
+remembered being torn from her mother while clinging to her dress. The
+trader who bought her mother did not wish to buy her. She remembered
+having a brother, with whom she used to play, but she had been separated
+from him also, and since then had lost all trace of them. After she was
+sold from her mother she became the property of an excellent old lady,
+who seems to have been very careful to imbue her mind with good
+principles; a woman who loved purity, not only for her own daughters,
+but also for the defenseless girls in her home. I believe it was the
+lady's intention to have freed Marie at her death, but she died
+suddenly, and, the estate being involved, she was sold with it and fell
+into the hands of my agent. I became deeply interested in her when I
+heard her story, and began to pity her."
+
+"And I suppose love sprang from pity."
+
+"I not only pitied her, but I learned to respect her. I had met with
+beautiful women in the halls of wealth and fashion, both at home and
+abroad, but there was something in her different from all my experience
+of womanhood."
+
+"I should think so," said Lorraine, with a sneer; "but I should like to
+know what it was."
+
+"It was something such as I have seen in old cathedrals, lighting up the
+beauty of a saintly face. A light which the poet tells was never seen on
+land or sea. I thought of this beautiful and defenseless girl adrift in
+the power of a reckless man, who, with all the advantages of wealth and
+education, had trailed his manhood in the dust, and she, with simple,
+childlike faith in the Unseen, seemed to be so good and pure that she
+commanded my respect and won my heart. In her presence every base and
+unholy passion died, subdued by the supremacy of her virtue."
+
+"Why, Eugene, what has come over you? Talking of the virtue of these
+quadroon girls! You have lived so long in the North and abroad, that you
+seem to have lost the cue of our Southern life. Don't you know that
+these beautiful girls have been the curse of our homes? You have no idea
+of the hearts which are wrung by their presence."
+
+"But, Alfred, suppose it is so. Are they to blame for it? What can any
+woman do when she is placed in the hands of an irresponsible master;
+when she knows that resistance is vain? Yes, Alfred, I agree with you,
+these women are the bane of our Southern civilization; but they are the
+victims and we are the criminals."
+
+"I think from the airs that some of them put on when they get a chance,
+that they are very willing victims."
+
+"So much the worse for our institution. If it is cruel to debase a
+hapless victim, it is an increase of cruelty to make her contented with
+her degradation. Let me tell you, Alf, you cannot wrong or degrade a
+woman without wronging or degrading yourself."
+
+"What is the matter with you, Eugene? Are you thinking of taking
+priest's orders?"
+
+"No, Alf," said Eugene, rising and rapidly pacing the floor, "you may
+defend the system as much as you please, but you cannot deny that the
+circumstances it creates, and the temptations it affords, are sapping
+our strength and undermining our character."
+
+"That may be true," said Lorraine, somewhat irritably, "but you had
+better be careful how you air your Northern notions in public."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because public opinion is too sensitive to tolerate any such
+discussions."
+
+"And is not that a proof that we are at fault with respect to our
+institutions?"
+
+"I don't know. I only know we are living in the midst of a magazine of
+powder, and it is not safe to enter it with a lighted candle."
+
+"Let me proceed with my story," continued Eugene. "During the long
+months in which I was convalescing, I was left almost entirely to the
+companionship of Marie. In my library I found a Bible, which I began to
+read from curiosity, but my curiosity deepened into interest when I saw
+the rapt expression on Marie's face. I saw in it a loving response to
+sentiments to which I was a stranger. In the meantime my conscience was
+awakened, and I scorned to take advantage of her defenselessness. I felt
+that I owed my life to her faithful care, and I resolved to take her
+North, manumit, educate, and marry her. I sent her to a Northern
+academy, but as soon as some of the pupils found that she was colored,
+objections were raised, and the principal was compelled to dismiss her.
+During my search for a school I heard of one where three girls of mixed
+blood were pursuing their studies, every one of whom would have been
+ignominiously dismissed had their connection with the negro race been
+known. But I determined to run no risks. I found a school where her
+connection with the negro race would be no bar to her advancement. She
+graduates next week, and I intend to marry her before I return home. She
+was faithful when others were faithless, stood by me when others
+deserted me to die in loneliness and neglect, and now I am about to
+reward her care with all the love and devotion it is in my power to
+bestow. That is why I am about to marry my faithful and devoted nurse,
+who snatched me from the jaws of death. Now that I have told you my
+story, what say you?"
+
+"Madness and folly inconceivable!" exclaimed Lorraine.
+
+"What to you is madness and folly is perfect sanity with me. After all,
+Alf, is there not an amount of unreason in our prejudices?"
+
+"That may be true; but I wasn't reasoned into it, and I do not expect to
+be reasoned out of it."
+
+"Will you accompany me North?"
+
+"No; except to put you in an insane asylum. You are the greatest crank
+out," said Lorraine, thoroughly disgusted.
+
+"No, thank you; I'm all right. I expect to start North to-morrow. You
+had better come and go."
+
+"I would rather follow you to your grave," replied Lorraine, hotly,
+while an expression of ineffable scorn passed over his cold, proud face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+SHADOWS IN THE HOME.
+
+On the next morning after this conversation Leroy left for the North, to
+attend the commencement and witness the graduation of his ward. Arriving
+in Ohio, he immediately repaired to the academy and inquired for the
+principal. He was shown into the reception-room, and in a few moments
+the principal entered.
+
+"Good morning," said Leroy, rising and advancing towards him; "how is my
+ward this morning?"
+
+"She is well, and has been expecting you. I am glad you came in time for
+the commencement. She stands among the foremost in her class."
+
+"I am glad to hear it. Will you send her this?" said Leroy, handing the
+principal a card. The principal took the card and immediately left the
+room.
+
+Very soon Leroy heard a light step, and looking up he saw a radiantly
+beautiful woman approaching him.
+
+"Good morning, Marie," he said, greeting her cordially, and gazing upon
+her with unfeigned admiration. "You are looking very handsome this
+morning."
+
+"Do you think so?" she asked, smiling and blushing. "I am glad you are
+not disappointed; that you do not feel your money has been spent in
+vain."
+
+"Oh, no, what I have spent on your education has been the best
+investment I ever made."
+
+"I hope," said Marie, "you may always find it so. But Mas----"
+
+"Hush!" said Leroy, laying his hand playfully on her lips; "you are
+free. I don't want the dialect of slavery to linger on your lips. You
+must not call me that name again."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I have a nearer and dearer one by which I wish to be called."
+
+Leroy drew her nearer, and whispered in her ear a single word. She
+started, trembled with emotion, grew pale, and blushed painfully. An
+awkward silence ensued, when Leroy, pressing her hand, exclaimed: "This
+is the hand that plucked me from the grave, and I am going to retain it
+as mine; mine to guard with my care until death us do part."
+
+Leroy looked earnestly into her eyes, which fell beneath his ardent
+gaze. With admirable self-control, while a great joy was thrilling her
+heart, she bowed her beautiful head and softly repeated, "Until death us
+do part."
+
+Leroy knew Southern society too well to expect it to condone his offense
+against its social customs, or give the least recognition to his wife,
+however cultured, refined, and charming she might be, if it were known
+that she had the least infusion of negro blood in her veins. But he was
+brave enough to face the consequences of his alliance, and marry the
+woman who was the choice of his heart, and on whom his affections were
+centred.
+
+After Leroy had left the room, Marie sat awhile thinking of the
+wonderful change that had come over her. Instead of being a lonely slave
+girl, with the fatal dower of beauty, liable to be bought and sold,
+exchanged, and bartered, she was to be the wife of a wealthy planter; a
+man in whose honor she could confide, and on whose love she could lean.
+
+Very interesting and pleasant were the commencement exercises in which
+Marie bore an important part. To enlist sympathy for her enslaved race,
+and appear to advantage before Leroy, had aroused all of her energies.
+The stimulus of hope, the manly love which was environing her life,
+brightened her eye and lit up the wonderful beauty of her countenance.
+During her stay in the North she had constantly been brought in contact
+with anti-slavery people. She was not aware that there was so much
+kindness among the white people of the country until she had tested it
+in the North. From the anti-slavery people in private life she had
+learned some of the noblest lessons of freedom and justice, and had
+become imbued with their sentiments. Her theme was "American
+Civilization, its Lights and Shadows."
+
+Graphically she portrayed the lights, faithfully she showed the shadows
+of our American civilization. Earnestly and feelingly she spoke of the
+blind Sampson in our land, who might yet shake the pillars of our great
+Commonwealth. Leroy listened attentively. At times a shadow of annoyance
+would overspread his face, but it was soon lost in the admiration her
+earnestness and zeal inspired. Like Esther pleading for the lives of her
+people in the Oriental courts of a despotic king, she stood before the
+audience, pleading for those whose lips were sealed, but whose condition
+appealed to the mercy and justice of the Nation. Strong men wiped the
+moisture from their eyes, and women's hearts throbbed in unison with the
+strong, brave words that were uttered in behalf of freedom for all and
+chains for none. Generous applause was freely bestowed, and beautiful
+bouquets were showered upon her. When it was known that she was to be
+the wife of her guardian, warm congratulations were given, and earnest
+hopes expressed for the welfare of the lonely girl, who, nearly all her
+life, had been deprived of a parent's love and care. On the eve of
+starting South Leroy procured a license, and united his destiny with the
+young lady whose devotion in the darkest hour had won his love and
+gratitude.
+
+In a few days Marie returned as mistress to the plantation from which
+she had gone as a slave. But as unholy alliances were common in those
+days between masters and slaves, no one took especial notice that Marie
+shared Leroy's life as mistress of his home, and that the family silver
+and jewelry were in her possession. But Leroy, happy in his choice,
+attended to the interests of his plantation, and found companionship in
+his books and in the society of his wife. A few male companions visited
+him occasionally, admired the magnificent beauty of his wife, shook
+their heads, and spoke of him as being very eccentric, but thought his
+marriage the great mistake of his life. But none of his female friends
+ever entered his doors, when it became known that Marie held the
+position of mistress of his mansion, and presided at his table. But she,
+sheltered in the warm clasp of loving arms, found her life like a joyous
+dream.
+
+Into that quiet and beautiful home three children were born, unconscious
+of the doom suspended over their heads.
+
+"Oh, how glad I am," Marie would often say, "that these children are
+free. I could never understand how a cultured white man could have his
+own children enslaved. I can understand how savages, fighting with each
+other, could doom their vanquished foes to slavery, but it has always
+been a puzzle to me how a civilized man could drag his own children,
+bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, down to the position of social
+outcasts, abject slaves, and political pariahs."
+
+"But, Marie," said Eugene, "all men do not treat their illegitimate
+children in the manner you describe. The last time I was in New Orleans
+I met Henri Augustine at the depot, with two beautiful young girls. At
+first I thought that they were his own children, they resembled him so
+closely. But afterwards I noticed that they addressed him as 'Mister.'
+Before we parted he told me that his wife had taken such a dislike to
+their mother that she could not bear to see them on the place. At last,
+weary of her dissatisfaction, he had promised to bring them to New
+Orleans and sell them. Instead, he was going to Ohio to give them their
+freedom, and make provision for their future."
+
+"What a wrong!" said Marie.
+
+"Who was wronged?" said Leroy, in astonishment.
+
+"Every one in the whole transaction," answered Marie. "Your friend
+wronged himself by sinning against his own soul. He wronged his wife by
+arousing her hatred and jealousy through his unfaithfulness. He wronged
+those children by giving them the _status_ of slaves and outcasts. He
+wronged their mother by imposing upon her the burdens and cares of
+maternity without the rights and privileges of a wife. He made her crown
+of motherhood a circlet of shame. Under other circumstances she might
+have been an honored wife and happy mother. And I do think such men
+wrong their own legitimate children by transmitting to them a weakened
+moral fibre."
+
+"Oh, Marie, you have such an uncomfortable way of putting things. You
+make me feel that we have done those things which we ought not to have
+done, and have left undone those things which we ought to have done."
+
+"If it annoys you," said Marie, "I will stop talking."
+
+"Oh, no, go on," said Leroy, carelessly; and then he continued more
+thoughtfully, "I know a number of men who have sent such children North,
+and manumitted, educated, and left them valuable legacies. We are all
+liable to err, and, having done wrong, all we can do is to make
+reparation."
+
+"My dear husband, this is a wrong where reparation is impossible.
+Neither wealth nor education can repair the wrong of a dishonored birth.
+There are a number of slaves in this section who are servants to their
+own brothers and sisters; whose fathers have robbed them not simply of
+liberty but of the right of being well born. Do you think these things
+will last forever?"
+
+"I suppose not. There are some prophets of evil who tell us that the
+Union is going to dissolve. But I know it would puzzle their brains to
+tell where the crack will begin. I reckon we'll continue to jog along as
+usual. 'Cotton fights, and cotton conquers for American slavery.'"
+
+Even while Leroy dreamed of safety the earthquake was cradling its fire;
+the ground was growing hollow beneath his tread; but his ear was too
+dull to catch the sound; his vision too blurred to read the signs of the
+times.
+
+"Marie," said Leroy, taking up the thread of the discourse, "slavery is
+a sword that cuts both ways. If it wrongs the negro, it also curses the
+white man. But we are in it, and what can we do?"
+
+"Get out of it as quickly as possible."
+
+"That is easier said than done. I would willingly free every slave on my
+plantation if I could do so without expatriating them. Some of them have
+wives and children on other plantations, and to free them is to separate
+them from their kith and kin. To let them remain here as a free people
+is out of the question. My hands are tied by law and custom."
+
+"Who tied them?" asked Marie.
+
+"A public opinion, whose meshes I cannot break. If the negro is the
+thrall of his master, we are just as much the thralls of public
+opinion."
+
+"Why do you not battle against public opinion, if you think it is
+wrong?"
+
+"Because I have neither the courage of a martyr, nor the faith of a
+saint; and so I drift along, trying to make the condition of our slaves
+as comfortable as I possibly can. I believe there are slaves on this
+plantation whom the most flattering offers of freedom would not entice
+away."
+
+"I do not think," said Marie, "that some of you planters understand your
+own slaves. Lying is said to be the vice of slaves. The more intelligent
+of them have so learned to veil their feelings that you do not see the
+undercurrent of discontent beneath their apparent good humor and
+jollity. The more discontented they are, the more I respect them. To me
+a contented slave is an abject creature. I hope that I shall see the
+day when there will not be a slave in the land. I hate the whole thing
+from the bottom of my heart."
+
+"Marie, your Northern education has unfitted you for Southern life. You
+are free, yourself, and so are our children. Why not let well enough
+alone?"
+
+"Because I love liberty, not only for myself but for every human being.
+Think how dear these children are to me; and then for the thought to be
+forever haunting me, that if you were dead they could be turned out of
+doors and divided among your relatives. I sometimes lie awake at night
+thinking of how there might be a screw loose somewhere, and, after all,
+the children and I might be reduced to slavery."
+
+"Marie, what in the world is the matter with you? Have you had a
+presentiment of my death, or, as Uncle Jack says, 'hab you seed it in a
+vision?'"
+
+"No, but I have had such sad forebodings that they almost set me wild.
+One night I dreamt that you were dead; that the lawyers entered the
+house, seized our property, and remanded us to slavery. I never can be
+satisfied in the South with such a possibility hanging over my head."
+
+"Marie, dear, you are growing nervous. Your imagination is too active.
+You are left too much alone on this plantation. I hope that for your own
+and the children's sake I will be enabled to arrange our affairs so as
+to find a home for you where you will not be doomed to the social
+isolation and ostracism that surround you here."
+
+"I don't mind the isolation for myself, but the children. You have
+enjoined silence on me with respect to their connection with the negro
+race, but I do not think we can conceal it from them very long. It will
+not be long before Iola will notice the offishness of girls of her own
+age, and the scornful glances which, even now, I think, are leveled at
+her. Yesterday Harry came crying to me, and told me that one of the
+neighbor's boys had called him 'nigger.'"
+
+A shadow flitted over Leroy's face, as he answered, somewhat soberly,
+"Oh, Marie, do not meet trouble half way. I have manumitted you, and the
+children will follow your condition. I have made you all legatees of my
+will. Except my cousin, Alfred Lorraine, I have only distant relatives,
+whom I scarcely know and who hardly know me."
+
+"Your cousin Lorraine? Are you sure our interests would be safe in his
+hands?"
+
+"I think so; I don't think Alfred would do anything dishonorable."
+
+"He might not with his equals. But how many men would be bound by a
+sense of honor where the rights of a colored woman are in question? Your
+cousin was bitterly opposed to our marriage, and I would not trust any
+important interests in his hands. I do hope that in providing for our
+future you will make assurance doubly sure."
+
+"I certainly will, and all that human foresight can do shall be done for
+you and our children."
+
+"Oh," said Marie, pressing to her heart a beautiful child of six
+summers, "I think it would almost make me turn over in my grave to know
+that every grace and charm which this child possesses would only be so
+much added to her value as an article of merchandise."
+
+As Marie released the child from her arms she looked wonderingly into
+her mother's face and clung closely to her, as if to find refuge from
+some unseen evil. Leroy noticed this, and sighed unconsciously, as an
+expression of pain flitted over his face.
+
+"Now, Marie," he continued, "stop tormenting yourself with useless
+fears. Although, with all her faults, I still love the South, I will
+make arrangements either to live North or go to France. There life will
+be brighter for us all. Now, Marie, seat yourself at the piano and
+sing:--
+
+    'Sing me the songs that to me were so dear,
+            Long, long ago.
+     Sing me the songs I delighted to hear,
+            Long, long ago."
+
+As Marie sang the anxiety faded from her face, a sense of security stole
+over her, and she sat among her loved ones a happy wife and mother. What
+if no one recognized her on that lonely plantation! Her world was,
+nevertheless, there. The love and devotion of her husband brightened
+every avenue of her life, while her children filled her home with music,
+mirth, and sunshine.
+
+Marie had undertaken their education, but she could not give them the
+culture which comes from the attrition of thought, and from contact with
+the ideas of others. Since her school-days she had read extensively and
+thought much, and in solitude her thoughts had ripened. But for her
+children there were no companions except the young slaves of the
+plantation, and she dreaded the effect of such intercourse upon their
+lives and characters.
+
+Leroy had always been especially careful to conceal from his children
+the knowledge of their connection with the negro race. To Marie this
+silence was oppressive.
+
+One day she said to him, "I see no other way of finishing the education
+of these children than by sending them to some Northern school."
+
+"I have come," said Leroy, "to the same conclusion. We had better take
+Iola and Harry North and make arrangements for them to spend several
+years in being educated. Riches take wings to themselves and fly away,
+but a good education is an investment on which the law can place no
+attachment. As there is a possibility of their origin being discovered,
+I will find a teacher to whom I can confide our story, and upon whom I
+can enjoin secrecy. I want them well fitted for any emergency in life.
+When I discover for what they have the most aptitude I will give them
+especial training in that direction."
+
+A troubled look passed over the face of Marie, as she hesitatingly said:
+"I am so afraid that you will regret our marriage when you fully realize
+the complications it brings."
+
+"No, no," said Leroy, tenderly, "it is not that I regret our marriage,
+or feel the least disdain for our children on account of the blood in
+their veins; but I do not wish them to grow up under the contracting
+influence of this race prejudice. I do not wish them to feel that they
+have been born under a proscription from which no valor can redeem them,
+nor that any social advancement or individual development can wipe off
+the ban which clings to them. No, Marie, let them go North, learn all
+they can, aspire all they may. The painful knowledge will come all too
+soon. Do not forestall it. I want them simply to grow up as other
+children; not being patronized by friends nor disdained by foes."
+
+"My dear husband, you may be perfectly right, but are you not preparing
+our children for a fearful awakening? Are you not acting on the plan,
+'After me the deluge?'"
+
+"Not at all, Marie. I want our children to grow up without having their
+self-respect crushed in the bud. You know that the North is not free
+from racial prejudice."
+
+"I know it," said Marie, sadly, "and I think one of the great mistakes
+of our civilization is that which makes color, and not character, a
+social test."
+
+"I think so, too," said Leroy. "The strongest men and women of a
+down-trodden race may bare their bosoms to an adverse fate and develop
+courage in the midst of opposition, but we have no right to subject our
+children to such crucial tests before their characters are formed. For
+years, when I lived abroad, I had an opportunity to see and hear of men
+of African descent who had distinguished themselves and obtained a
+recognition in European circles, which they never could have gained in
+this country. I now recall the name of Ira Aldridge, a colored man from
+New York City, who was covered with princely honors as a successful
+tragedian. Alexander Dumas was not forced to conceal his origin to
+succeed as a novelist. When I was in St. Petersburg I was shown the
+works of Alexander Sergevitch, a Russian poet, who was spoken of as the
+Byron of Russian literature, and reckoned one of the finest poets that
+Russia has produced in this century. He was also a prominent figure in
+fashionable society, and yet he was of African lineage. One of his
+paternal ancestors was a negro who had been ennobled by Peter the
+Great. I can't help contrasting the recognition which these men had
+received with the treatment which has been given to Frederick Douglass
+and other intelligent colored men in this country. With me the wonder is
+not that they have achieved so little, but that they have accomplished
+so much. No, Marie, we will have our children educated without being
+subjected to the depressing influences of caste feeling. Perhaps by the
+time their education is finished I will be ready to wind up my affairs
+and take them abroad, where merit and ability will give them entrance
+into the best circles of art, literature, and science."
+
+After this conversation Leroy and his wife went North, and succeeded in
+finding a good school for their children. In a private interview he
+confided to the principal the story of the cross in their blood, and,
+finding him apparently free from racial prejudice, he gladly left the
+children in his care. Gracie, the youngest child, remained at home, and
+her mother spared no pains to fit her for the seminary against the time
+her sister should have finished her education.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+THE PLAGUE AND THE LAW.
+
+Years passed, bringing no special change to the life of Leroy and his
+wife. Shut out from the busy world, its social cares and anxieties,
+Marie's life flowed peacefully on. Although removed by the protecting
+care of Leroy from the condition of servitude, she still retained a deep
+sympathy for the enslaved, and was ever ready to devise plans to
+ameliorate their condition.
+
+Leroy, although in the midst of slavery, did not believe in the
+rightfulness of the institution. He was in favor of gradual
+emancipation, which would prepare both master and slave for a moral
+adaptation to the new conditions of freedom. While he was willing to
+have the old rivets taken out of slavery, politicians and planters were
+devising plans to put in new screws. He was desirous of having it ended
+in the States; they were clamorous to have it established in the
+Territories.
+
+But so strong was the force of habit, combined with the feebleness of
+his moral resistance and the nature of his environment, that instead of
+being an athlete, armed for a glorious strife, he had learned to drift
+where he should have steered, to float with the current instead of nobly
+breasting the tide. He conducted his plantation with as much lenity as
+it was possible to infuse into a system darkened with the shadow of a
+million crimes.
+
+Leroy had always been especially careful not to allow his children to
+spend their vacations at home. He and Marie generally spent that time
+with them at some summer resort.
+
+"I would like," said Marie, one day, "to have our children spend their
+vacations at home. Those summer resorts are pleasant, yet, after all,
+there is no place like home. But," and her voice became tremulous, "our
+children would now notice their social isolation and inquire the cause."
+A faint sigh arose to the lips of Leroy, as she added: "Man is a social
+being; I've known it to my sorrow."
+
+There was a tone of sadness in Leroy's voice, as he replied: "Yes,
+Marie, let them stay North. We seem to be entering on a period fraught
+with great danger. I cannot help thinking and fearing that we are on the
+eve of a civil war."
+
+"A civil war!" exclaimed Marie, with an air of astonishment. "A civil
+war about what?"
+
+"Why, Marie, the thing looks to me so wild and foolish I hardly know how
+to explain. But some of our leading men have come to the conclusion that
+North and South had better separate, and instead of having one to have
+two independent governments. The spirit of secession is rampant in the
+land. I do not know what the result will be, and I fear it will bode no
+good to the country. Between the fire-eating Southerners and the
+meddling Abolitionists we are about to be plunged into a great deal of
+trouble. I fear there are breakers ahead. The South is dissatisfied with
+the state of public opinion in the North. We are realizing that we are
+two peoples in the midst of one nation. William H. Seward has
+proclaimed that the conflict between freedom and slavery is
+irrepressible, and that the country cannot remain half free and half
+slave."
+
+"How will _you_ go?" asked Marie.
+
+"My heart is with the Union. I don't believe in secession. There has
+been no cause sufficient to justify a rupture. The North has met us time
+and again in the spirit of concession and compromise. When we wanted the
+continuance of the African slave trade the North conceded that we should
+have twenty years of slave-trading for the benefit of our plantations.
+When we wanted more territory she conceded to our desires and gave us
+land enough to carve out four States, and there yet remains enough for
+four more. When we wanted power to recapture our slaves when they fled
+North for refuge, Daniel Webster told Northerners to conquer their
+prejudices, and they gave us the whole Northern States as a hunting
+ground for our slaves. The Presidential chair has been filled the
+greater number of years by Southerners, and the majority of offices has
+been shared by our men. We wanted representation in Congress on a basis
+which would include our slaves, and the North, whose suffrage represents
+only men, gave us a three-fifths representation for our slaves, whom we
+count as property. I think the step will be suicidal. There are
+extremists in both sections, but I hope, between them both, wise
+counsels and measures will prevail."
+
+Just then Alfred Lorraine was ushered into the room. Occasionally he
+visited Leroy, but he always came alone. His wife was the only daughter
+of an enterprising slave-trader, who had left her a large amount of
+property.
+
+Her social training was deficient, her education limited, but she was
+too proud of being a pure white woman to enter the home of Leroy, with
+Marie as its presiding genius. Lorraine tolerated Marie's presence as a
+necessary evil, while to her he always seemed like a presentiment of
+trouble. With his coming a shadow fell upon her home, hushing its music
+and darkening its sunshine. A sense of dread oppressed her. There came
+into her soul an intuitive feeling that somehow his coming was fraught
+with danger. When not peering around she would often catch his eyes bent
+on her with a baleful expression.
+
+Leroy and his cousin immediately fell into a discussion on the condition
+of the country. Lorraine was a rank Secessionist, ready to adopt the
+most extreme measures of the leaders of the movement, even to the
+reopening of the slave trade. Leroy thought a dissolution of the Union
+would involve a fearful expenditure of blood and treasure for which,
+before the eyes of the world, there could be no justification. The
+debate lasted late into the night, leaving both Lorraine and Leroy just
+as set in their opinions as they were before they began. Marie listened
+attentively awhile, then excused herself and withdrew.
+
+After Lorraine had gone Marie said: "There is something about your
+cousin that fills me with nameless dread. I always feel when he enters
+the room as if some one were walking over my grave. I do wish he would
+stay at home."
+
+"I wish so, too, since he disturbs you. But, Marie, you are growing
+nervous. How cold your hands are. Don't you feel well?"
+
+"Oh, yes; I am only a little faint. I wish he would never come. But, as
+he does, I must make the best of it."
+
+"Yes, Marie, treat him well for my sake. He is the only relative I have
+who ever darkens our doors."
+
+"I have no faith in his friendship for either myself or my children. I
+feel that while he makes himself agreeable to you he hates me from the
+bottom of his heart, and would do anything to get me out of the way. Oh,
+I am _so_ glad I am your lawful wife, and that you married me before you
+brought me back to this State! I believe that if you were gone he
+wouldn't have the least scruple against trying to prove our marriage
+invalid and remanding us to slavery."
+
+Leroy looked anxiously and soberly at his wife, and said: "Marie, I do
+not think so. Your life is too lonely here. Write your orders to New
+Orleans, get what you need for the journey, and let us spend the summer
+somewhere in the North."
+
+Just then Marie's attention was drawn to some household matters, and it
+was a short time before she returned.
+
+"Tom," continued Leroy, "has just brought the mail, and here is a letter
+from Iola."
+
+Marie noticed that he looked quite sober as he read, and that an
+expression of vexation was lingering on his lips.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Marie.
+
+"Nothing much; only a tempest in a teapot. The presence of a colored
+girl in Mr. Galen's school has caused a breeze of excitement. You know
+Mr. Galen is quite an Abolitionist, and, being true to his principles,
+he could not consistently refuse when a colored woman applied for her
+daughter's admission. Of course, when he took her he was compelled to
+treat her as any other pupil. In so doing he has given mortal offense to
+the mother of two Southern boys. She has threatened to take them away if
+the colored girl remains."
+
+"What will he do about it?" asked Marie, thoughtfully.
+
+"Oh, it is a bitter pill, but I think he will have to swallow it. He is
+between two fires. He cannot dismiss her from the school and be true to
+his Abolition principles; yet if he retains her he will lose his
+Southern customers, and I know he cannot afford to do that."
+
+"What does Iola say?"
+
+"He has found another boarding place for her, but she is to remain in
+the school. He had to throw that sop to the whale."
+
+"Does she take sides against the girl?"
+
+"No, I don't think she does. She says she feels sorry for her, and that
+she would hate to be colored. 'It is so hard to be looked down on for
+what one can't help.'"
+
+"Poor child! I wish we could leave the country. I never would consent to
+her marrying any one without first revealing to him her connection with
+the negro race. This is a subject on which I am not willing to run any
+risks."
+
+"My dear Marie, when you shall have read Iola's letter you will see it
+is more than a figment of my imagination that has made me so loth to
+have our children know the paralyzing power of caste."
+
+Leroy, always liberal with his wife and children, spared neither pains
+nor expense to have them prepared for their summer outing. Iola was to
+graduate in a few days. Harry was attending a school in the State of
+Maine, and his father had written to him, apprising him of his intention
+to come North that season. In a few days Leroy and his wife started
+North, but before they reached Vicksburg they were met by the
+intelligence that the yellow fever was spreading in the Delta, and that
+pestilence was breathing its bane upon the morning air and distilling
+its poison upon the midnight dews.
+
+"Let us return home," said Marie.
+
+"It is useless," answered Leroy. "It is nearly two days since we left
+home. The fever is spreading south of us with fearful rapidity. To
+return home is to walk into the jaws of death. It was my intention to
+have stopped at Vicksburg, but now I will go on as soon as I can make
+the connections."
+
+Early next morning Leroy and his wife started again on their journey.
+The cars were filled with terror-stricken people who were fleeing from
+death, when death was everywhere. They fled from the city only to meet
+the dreaded apparition in the country. As they journeyed on Leroy grew
+restless and feverish. He tried to brace himself against the infection
+which was creeping slowly but insidiously into his life, dulling his
+brain, fevering his blood, and prostrating his strength. But vain were
+all his efforts. He had no armor strong enough to repel the invasion of
+death. They stopped at a small town on the way and obtained the best
+medical skill and most careful nursing, but neither skill nor art
+availed. On the third day death claimed Leroy as a victim, and Marie
+wept in hopeless agony over the grave of her devoted husband, whose sad
+lot it was to die from home and be buried among strangers.
+
+But before he died he placed his will in Marie's hands, saying: "I have
+left you well provided for. Kiss the children for me and bid them
+good-bye."
+
+He tried to say a parting word to Gracie, but his voice failed, and he
+fainted into the stillness of death. A mortal paleness overspread his
+countenance, on which had already gathered the shadows that never
+deceive. In speechless agony Marie held his hand until it released its
+pressure in death, and then she stood alone beside her dead, with all
+the bright sunshine of her life fading into the shadows of the grave.
+Heart-broken and full of fearful forebodings, Marie left her cherished
+dead in the quiet village of H---- and returned to her death-darkened
+home.
+
+It was a lovely day in June, birds were singing their sweetest songs,
+flowers were breathing their fragrance on the air, when Mam Liza,
+sitting at her cabin-door, talking with some of the house servants, saw
+a carriage approaching, and wondered who was coming.
+
+"I wonder," she said, excitedly, "whose comin' to de house when de folks
+is done gone."
+
+But her surprise was soon changed to painful amazement, when she saw
+Marie, robed in black, alighting from the carriage, and holding Gracie
+by the hand. She caught sight of the drooping head and grief-stricken
+face, and rushed to her, exclaiming:--
+
+"Whar's Marse Eugene?"
+
+"Dead," said Marie, falling into Mammy Liza's arms, sobbing out, "dead!
+_ died_ of yellow fever."
+
+A wild burst of sorrow came from the lips of the servants, who had
+drawn near.
+
+"Where is he?" said Mam Liza, speaking like one suddenly bewildered.
+
+"He is buried in H----. I could not bring him home," said Marie.
+
+"My pore baby," said Mam Liza, with broken sobs. "I'se drefful sorry. My
+heart's most broke into two." Then, controlling herself, she dismissed
+the servants who stood around, weeping, and led Marie to her room.
+
+"Come, honey, lie down an' lem'me git yer a cup ob tea."
+
+"Oh, no; I don't want anything," said Marie, wringing her hands in
+bitter agony.
+
+"Oh, honey," said Mam Liza, "yer musn't gib up. Yer knows whar to put
+yer trus'. Yer can't lean on de arm of flesh in dis tryin' time."
+Kneeling by the side of her mistress she breathed out a prayer full of
+tenderness, hope, and trust.
+
+Marie grew calmer. It seemed as if that earnest, trustful prayer had
+breathed into her soul a feeling of resignation.
+
+Gracie stood wonderingly by, vainly trying to comprehend the great
+sorrow which was overwhelming the life of her mother.
+
+After the first great burst of sorrow was over, Marie sat down to her
+desk and wrote a letter to Iola, informing her of her father's death. By
+the time she had finished it she grew dizzy and faint, and fell into a
+swoon. Mammy Liza tenderly laid her on the bed, and helped restore her
+to consciousness.
+
+Lorraine, having heard of his cousin's death, came immediately to see
+Marie. She was too ill to have an interview with him, but he picked up
+the letter she had written and obtained Iola's address.
+
+Lorraine made a careful investigation of the case, to ascertain whether
+Marie's marriage was valid. To his delight he found there was a flaw in
+the marriage and an informality in the manumission. He then determined
+to invalidate Marie's claim, and divide the inheritance among Leroy's
+white relations. In a short time strangers, distant relatives of her
+husband, became frequent visitors at the plantation, and made themselves
+offensively familiar. At length the dreadful storm burst.
+
+Alfred Lorraine entered suit for his cousin's estate, and for the
+remanding of his wife and children to slavery. In a short time he came
+armed with legal authority, and said to Marie:--
+
+"I have come to take possession of these premises."
+
+"By what authority?" she gasped, turning deathly pale. He hesitated a
+moment, as if his words were arrested by a sense of shame.
+
+"By what authority?" she again demanded.
+
+"By the authority of the law," answered Lorraine, "which has decided
+that Leroy's legal heirs are his white blood relations, and that your
+marriage is null and void."
+
+"But," exclaimed Marie, "I have our marriage certificate. I was Leroy's
+lawful wife."
+
+"Your marriage certificate is not worth the paper it is written on."
+
+"Oh, you must be jesting, cruelly jesting. It can't be so."
+
+"Yes; it is so. Judge Starkins has decided that your manumission is
+unlawful; your marriage a bad precedent, and inimical to the welfare of
+society; and that you and your children are remanded to slavery."
+
+Marie stood as one petrified. She seemed a statue of fear and despair.
+She tried to speak, reached out her hand as if she were groping in the
+dark, turned pale as death as if all the blood in her veins had receded
+to her heart, and, with one heart-rending cry of bitter agony, she fell
+senseless to the floor. Her servants, to whom she had been so kind in
+her days of prosperity, bent pityingly over her, chafed her cold hands,
+and did what they could to restore her to consciousness. For awhile she
+was stricken with brain fever, and her life seemed trembling on its
+frailest cord.
+
+Gracie was like one perfectly dazed. When not watching by her mother's
+bedside she wandered aimlessly about the house, growing thinner day by
+day. A slow fever was consuming her life. Faithfully and carefully Mammy
+Liza watched over her, and did all she could to bring smiles to her lips
+and light to her fading eyes, but all in vain. Her only interest in life
+was to sit where she could watch her mother as she tossed to and fro in
+delirium, and to wonder what had brought the change in her once happy
+home. Finally she, too, was stricken with brain fever, which intervened
+as a mercy between her and the great sorrow that was overshadowing her
+young life. Tears would fill the servants' eyes as they saw the dear
+child drifting from them like a lovely vision, too bright for earth's
+dull cares and weary, wasting pain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+SCHOOL-GIRL NOTIONS.
+
+During Iola's stay in the North she found a strong tide of opposition
+against slavery. Arguments against the institution had entered the
+Church and made legislative halls the arenas of fierce debate. The
+subject had become part of the social converse of the fireside, and had
+enlisted the best brain and heart of the country. Anti-slavery
+discussions were pervading the strongest literature and claiming, a
+place on the most popular platforms.
+
+Iola, being a Southern girl and a slave-holder's daughter, always
+defended slavery when it was under discussion.
+
+"Slavery can't be wrong," she would say, "for my father is a
+slave-holder, and my mother is as good to our servants as she can be. My
+father often tells her that she spoils them, and lets them run over her.
+I never saw my father strike one of them. I love my mammy as much as I
+do my own mother, and I believe she loves us just as if we were her own
+children. When we are sick I am sure that she could not do anything more
+for us than she does."
+
+"But, Iola," responded one of her school friends, "after all, they are
+not free. Would you be satisfied to have the most beautiful home, the
+costliest jewels, or the most elegant wardrobe if you were a slave?"
+
+"Oh, the cases are not parallel. Our slaves do not want their freedom.
+They would not take it if we gave it to them."
+
+"That is not the case with them all. My father has seen men who have
+encountered almost incredible hardships to get their freedom. Iola, did
+you ever attend an anti-slavery meeting?"
+
+"No; I don't think these Abolitionists have any right to meddle in our
+affairs. I believe they are prejudiced against us, and want to get our
+property. I read about them in the papers when I was at home. I don't
+want to hear my part of the country run down. My father says the slaves
+would be very well contented if no one put wrong notions in their
+heads."
+
+"I don't know," was the response of her friend, "but I do not think that
+that slave mother who took her four children, crossed the Ohio River on
+the ice, killed one of the children and attempted the lives of the other
+two, was a contented slave. And that other one, who, running away and
+finding herself pursued, threw herself over the Long Bridge into the
+Potomac, was evidently not satisfied. I do not think the numbers who are
+coming North on the Underground Railroad can be very contented. It is
+not natural for people to run away from happiness, and if they are so
+happy and contented, why did Congress pass the Fugitive Slave Bill?"
+
+"Well, I don't think," answered Iola, "any of our slaves would run away.
+I know mamma don't like slavery very much. I have often heard her say
+that she hoped the time would come when there would not be a slave in
+the land. My father does not think as she does. He thinks slavery is not
+wrong if you treat them well and don't sell them from their families. I
+intend, after I have graduated, to persuade pa to buy a house in New
+Orleans, and spend the winter there. You know this will be my first
+season out, and I hope that you will come and spend the winter with me.
+We will have such gay times, and you will so fall in love with our sunny
+South that you will never want to come back to shiver amid the snows and
+cold of the North. I think one winter in the South would cure you of
+your Abolitionism."
+
+"Have you seen her yet?"
+
+This question was asked by Louis Bastine, an attorney who had come North
+in the interests of Lorraine. The scene was the New England village
+where Mr. Galen's academy was located, and which Iola was attending.
+This question was addressed to Camille Lecroix, Bastine's intimate
+friend, who had lately come North. He was the son of a planter who lived
+near Leroy's plantation, and was familiar with Iola's family history.
+Since his arrival North, Bastine had met him and communicated to him his
+intentions.
+
+"Yes; just caught a glimpse of her this morning as she was going down
+the street," was Camille's reply.
+
+"She is a most beautiful creature," said Louis Bastine. "She has the
+proud poise of Leroy, the most splendid eyes I ever saw in a woman's
+head, lovely complexion, and a glorious wealth of hair. She would bring
+$2000 any day in a New Orleans market."
+
+"I always feel sorry," said Camille, "when I see one of those Creole
+girls brought to the auction block. I have known fathers who were deeply
+devoted to their daughters, but who through some reverse of fortune were
+forced to part with them, and I always think the blow has been equally
+terrible on both sides. I had a friend who had two beautiful daughters
+whom he had educated in the North. They were cultured, and really belles
+in society. They were entirely ignorant of their lineage, but when their
+father died it was discovered that their mother had been a slave. It was
+a fearful blow. They would have faced poverty, but the knowledge of
+their tainted blood was more than they could bear."
+
+"What became of them?"
+
+"They both died, poor girls. I believe they were as much killed by the
+blow as if they had been shot. To tell you the truth, Bastine, I feel
+sorry for this girl. I don't believe she has the least idea of her negro
+blood."
+
+"No, Leroy has been careful to conceal it from her," replied Bastine.
+
+"Is that so?" queried Camille. "Then he has made a great mistake."
+
+"I can't help that," said Bastine; "business is business."
+
+"How can you get her away?" asked Camille. "You will have to be very
+cautious, because if these pesky Abolitionists get an inkling of what
+you're doing they will balk your game double quick. And when you come to
+look at it, isn't it a shame to attempt to reduce that girl to slavery?
+She is just as white as we are, as good as any girl in the land, and
+better educated than thousands of white girls. A girl with her apparent
+refinement and magnificent beauty, were it not for the cross in her
+blood, I would be proud to introduce to our set. She would be the
+sensation of the season. I believe to-day it would be easier for me to
+go to the slums and take a young girl from there, and have her
+introduced as my wife, than to have society condone the offense if I
+married that lovely girl. There is not a social circle in the South that
+would not take it as a gross insult to have her introduced into it."
+
+"Well," said Bastine, "my plan is settled. Leroy has never allowed her
+to spend her vacations at home. I understand she is now very anxious to
+get home, and, as Lorraine's attorney, I have come on his account to
+take her home."
+
+"How will you do it?"
+
+"I shall tell her her father is dangerously ill, and desires her to come
+as quickly as possible."
+
+"And what then?"
+
+"Have her inventoried with the rest of the property."
+
+"Don't she know that her father is dead?"
+
+"I think not," said Bastine. "She is not in mourning, but appeared very
+light-hearted this morning, laughing and talking with two other girls. I
+was struck with her great beauty, and asked a gentleman who she was. He
+said, 'Miss Leroy, of Mississippi.' I think Lorraine has managed the
+affair so as to keep her in perfect ignorance of her father's death. I
+don't like the job, but I never let sentiment interfere with my work."
+
+Poor Iola! When she said slavery was not a bad thing, little did she
+think that she was destined to drink to its bitter dregs the cup she was
+so ready to press to the lips of others.
+
+"How do you think she will take to her situation?" asked Camille.
+
+"O, I guess," said Bastine, "she will sulk and take it pretty hard at
+first; but if she is managed right she will soon get over it. Give her
+plenty of jewelry, fine clothes, and an easy time."
+
+"All this business must be conducted with the utmost secrecy and speed.
+Her mother could not have written to her, for she has been suffering
+with brain fever and nervous prostration since Leroy's death. Lorraine
+knows her market value too well, and is too shrewd to let so much
+property pass out of his hands without making an effort to retain it."
+
+"Has she any brothers or sisters?"
+
+"Yes, a brother," replied Bastine; "but he is at another school, and I
+have no orders from Lorraine in reference to him. If I can get the girl
+I am willing to let well enough alone. I dread the interview with the
+principal more than anything else. I am afraid he will hem and haw, and
+have his doubts. Perhaps, when he sees my letters and hears my story, I
+can pull the wool over his eyes."
+
+"But, Louis, this is a pitiful piece of business. I should hate to be
+engaged in it."
+
+A deep flush of shame overspread for a moment the face of Lorraine's
+attorney, as he replied: "I don't like the job, but I have undertaken
+it, and must go through with it."
+
+"I see no '_must_' about it. Were I in your place I would wash my hands
+of the whole business."
+
+"I can't afford it," was Bastine's hard, business-like reply. On the
+next morning after this conversation between these two young men, Louis
+Bastine presented himself to the principal of the academy, with the
+request that Iola be permitted to leave immediately to attend the
+sick-bed of her father, who was dangerously ill. The principal
+hesitated, but while he was deliberating, a telegram, purporting to come
+from Iola's mother, summoned Iola to her father's bedside without delay.
+The principal, set at rest in regard to the truthfulness of the
+dispatch, not only permitted but expedited her departure.
+
+Iola and Bastine took the earliest train, and traveled without pausing
+until they reached a large hotel in a Southern city. There they were
+obliged to wait a few hours until they could resume their journey, the
+train having failed to make connection. Iola sat in a large, lonely
+parlor, waiting for the servant to show her to a private room. She had
+never known a great sorrow. Never before had the shadows of death
+mingled with the sunshine of her life.
+
+Anxious, travel-worn, and heavy-hearted, she sat in an easy chair, with
+nothing to divert her from the grief and anxiety which rendered every
+delay a source of painful anxiety.
+
+"Oh, I hope that he will be alive and growing better!" was the thought
+which kept constantly revolving in her mind, until she fell asleep. In
+her dreams she was at home, encircled in the warm clasp of her father's
+arms, feeling her mother's kisses lingering on her lips, and hearing the
+joyous greetings of the servants and Mammy Liza's glad welcome as she
+folded her to her heart. From this dream of bliss she was awakened by a
+burning kiss pressed on her lips, and a strong arm encircling her.
+Gazing around and taking in the whole situation, she sprang from her
+seat, her eyes flashing with rage and scorn, her face flushed to the
+roots of her hair, her voice shaken with excitement, and every nerve
+trembling with angry emotion.
+
+"How dare you do such a thing! Don't you know if my father were here he
+would crush you to the earth?"
+
+"Not so fast, my lovely tigress," said Bastine, "your father knew what
+he was doing when he placed you in my charge."
+
+"My father made a great mistake, if he thought he had put me in charge
+of a gentleman."
+
+"I am your guardian for the present," replied Bastine. "I am to see you
+safe home, and then my commission ends."
+
+"I wish it were ended now," she exclaimed, trembling with anger and
+mortification. Her voice was choked by emotion, and broken by smothered
+sobs. Louis Bastine thought to himself, "she is a real spitfire, but
+beautiful even in her wrath."
+
+During the rest of her journey Iola preserved a most freezing reserve
+towards Bastine. At length the journey was ended. Pale and anxious she
+rode up the avenue which led to her home.
+
+A strange silence pervaded the place. The servants moved sadly from
+place to place, and spoke in subdued tones. The windows were heavily
+draped with crape, and a funeral air pervaded the house.
+
+Mammy Liza met her at the door, and, with streaming eyes and convulsive
+sobs, folded her to her heart, as Iola exclaimed, in tones of hopeless
+anguish:--
+
+"Oh, papa's dead!"
+
+"Oh, my pore baby!" said mammy, "ain't you hearn tell 'bout it? Yore
+par's dead, an' your mar's bin drefful sick. She's better now."
+
+Mam Liza stepped lightly into Mrs. Leroy's room, and gently apprised her
+of Iola's arrival. In a darkened room lay the stricken mother, almost
+distracted by her late bereavement.
+
+"Oh, Iola," she exclaimed, as her daughter entered, "is this you? I am
+so sorry you came."
+
+Then, burying her head in Iola's bosom, she wept convulsively. "Much as
+I love you," she continued, between her sobs, "and much as I longed to
+see you, I am sorry you came."
+
+"Why, mother," replied Iola, astonished, "I received your telegram last
+Wednesday, and I took the earliest train I could get."
+
+"My dear child, I never sent you a telegram. It was a trick to bring you
+down South and reduce you to slavery."
+
+Iola eyed her mother curiously. What did she mean? Had grief dethroned
+her reason? Yet her eye was clear, her manner perfectly rational.
+
+Marie saw the astounded look on Iola's face, and nerving herself to the
+task, said: "Iola, I must tell you what your father always enjoined me
+to be silent about. I did not think it was the wisest thing, but I
+yielded to his desires. I have negro blood in my veins. I was your
+father's slave before I married him. His relatives have set aside his
+will. The courts have declared our marriage null and void and my
+manumission illegal, and we are all to be remanded to slavery."
+
+An expression of horror and anguish swept over Iola's face, and, turning
+deathly pale, she exclaimed, "Oh, mother, it can't be so! you must be
+dreaming!"
+
+"No, my child; it is a terrible reality."
+
+Almost wild with agony, Iola paced the floor, as the fearful truth broke
+in crushing anguish upon her mind. Then bursting into a paroxysm of
+tears succeeded by peals of hysterical laughter, said:--
+
+"I used to say that slavery is right. I didn't know what I was talking
+about." Then growing calmer, she said, "Mother, who is at the bottom of
+this downright robbery?"
+
+"Alfred Lorraine; I have always dreaded that man, and what I feared has
+come to pass. Your father had faith in him; I never had."
+
+"But, mother, could we not contest his claim. You have your marriage
+certificate and papa's will."
+
+"Yes, my dear child, but Judge Starkins has decided that we have no
+standing in the court, and no testimony according to law."
+
+"Oh, mother, what can I do?"
+
+"Nothing, my child, unless you can escape to the North."
+
+"And leave you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Mother, I will never desert you in your hour of trial. But can nothing
+be done? Had father no friends who would assist us?"
+
+"None that I know of. I do not think he had an acquaintance who approved
+of our marriage. The neighboring planters have stood so aloof from me
+that I do not know where to turn for either help or sympathy. I believe
+it was Lorraine who sent the telegram. I wrote to you as soon as I could
+after your father's death, but fainted just as I finished directing the
+letter. I do not think he knows where your brother is, and, if possible,
+he must not know. If you can by any means, _do_ send a letter to Harry
+and warn him not to attempt to come home. I don't know how you will
+succeed, for Lorraine has us all under surveillance. But it is according
+to law."
+
+"What law, mother?"
+
+"The law of the strong against the weak."
+
+"Oh, mother, it seems like a dreadful dream, a fearful nightmare! But I
+cannot shake it off. Where is Gracie?"
+
+"The dear child has been running down ever since her papa's death. She
+clung to me night and day while I had the brain fever, and could not be
+persuaded to leave me. She hardly ate anything for more than a week. She
+has been dangerously ill for several days, and the doctor says she
+cannot live. The fever has exhausted all her rallying power, and yet,
+dear as she is to me, I would rather consign her to the deepest grave
+than see her forced to be a slave."
+
+"So would I. I wish I could die myself."
+
+"Oh, Iola, do not talk so. Strive to be a Christian, to have faith in
+the darkest hour. Were it not for my hope of heaven I couldn't stand all
+this trouble."
+
+"Mother, are these people Christians who made these laws which are
+robbing us of our inheritance and reducing us to slavery? If this is
+Christianity I hate and despise it. Would the most cruel heathen do
+worse?"
+
+"My dear child, I have not learned my Christianity from them. I have
+learned it at the foot of the cross, and from this book," she said,
+placing a New Testament in Iola's hands. "Some of the most beautiful
+lessons of faith and trust I have ever learned were from among our lowly
+people in their humble cabins."
+
+"Mamma!" called a faint voice from the adjoining room. Marie
+immediately arose and went to the bedside of her sick child, where Mammy
+Liza was holding her faithful vigils. The child had just awakened from a
+fitful sleep.
+
+"I thought," she said, "that I heard Iola's voice. Has she come?"
+
+"Yes, darling; do you want to see her?"
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, as a bright smile broke over her dying features.
+
+Iola passed quickly into the room. Gracie reached out her thin,
+bloodless hand, clasped Iola's palm in hers, and said: "I am so glad you
+have come. Dear Iola, stand by mother. You and Harry are all she has. It
+is not hard to die. You and mother and Harry must meet me in heaven."
+
+Swiftly the tidings went through the house that Gracie was dying. The
+servants gathered around her with tearful eyes, as she bade them all
+good-bye. When she had finished, and Mammy had lowered the pillow, an
+unwonted radiance lit up her eye, and an expression of ineffable
+gladness overspread her face, as she murmured: "It is beautiful, so
+beautiful!" Fainter and fainter grew her voice, until, without a
+struggle or sigh, she passed away beyond the power of oppression and
+prejudice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+A REJECTED SUITOR.
+
+Very unexpected was Dr. Gresham's proposal to Iola. She had heartily
+enjoyed his society and highly valued his friendship, but he had never
+been associated in her mind with either love or marriage. As he held her
+hand in his a tell-tale flush rose to her cheek, a look of grateful
+surprise beamed from her eye, but it was almost immediately succeeded by
+an air of inexpressible sadness, a drooping of her eyelids, and an
+increasing pallor of her cheek. She withdrew her hand from his, shook
+her head sadly, and said:--
+
+"No, Doctor; that can never be. I am very grateful to you for your
+kindness. I value your friendship, but neither gratitude nor friendship
+is love, and I have nothing more than those to give."
+
+"Not at present," said Dr. Gresham; "but may I not hope your friendship
+will ripen into love?"
+
+"Doctor, I could not promise. I do not think that I should. There are
+barriers between us that I cannot pass. Were you to know them I think
+you would say the same."
+
+Just then the ambulance brought in a wounded scout, and Iola found
+relief from the wounds of her own heart in attending to his.
+
+Dr. Gresham knew the barrier that lay between them. It was one which his
+love had surmounted. But he was too noble and generous to take advantage
+of her loneliness to press his suit. He had lived in a part of the
+country where he had scarcely ever seen a colored person, and around the
+race their misfortunes had thrown a halo of romance. To him the negro
+was a picturesque being, over whose woes he had wept when a child, and
+whose wrongs he was ready to redress when a man. But when he saw the
+lovely girl who had been rescued by the commander of the post from the
+clutches of slavery, all the manhood and chivalry in his nature arose in
+her behalf, and he was ready to lay on the altar of her heart his first
+grand and overmastering love. Not discouraged by her refusal, but
+determined to overcome her objections, Dr. Gresham resolved that he
+would abide his time.
+
+Iola was not indifferent to Dr. Gresham. She admired his manliness and
+respected his character. He was tall and handsome, a fine specimen of
+the best brain and heart of New England. He had been nurtured under
+grand and ennobling influences. His father was a devoted Abolitionist.
+His mother was kind-hearted, but somewhat exclusive and aristocratic.
+She would have looked upon his marriage with Iola as a mistake and
+feared that such an alliance would hurt the prospects of her daughters.
+
+During Iola's stay in the North, she had learned enough of the racial
+feeling to influence her decision in reference to Dr. Gresham's offer.
+Iola, like other girls, had had her beautiful day-dreams before she was
+rudely awakened by the fate which had dragged her into the depths of
+slavery. In the chambers of her imagery were pictures of noble deeds; of
+high, heroic men, knightly, tender, true, and brave. In Dr. Gresham she
+saw the ideal of her soul exemplified. But in her lonely condition,
+with all its background of terrible sorrow and deep abasement, she had
+never for a moment thought of giving or receiving love from one of that
+race who had been so lately associated in her mind with horror,
+aversion, and disgust. His kindness to her had been a new experience.
+His companionship was an unexpected pleasure. She had learned to enjoy
+his presence and to miss him when absent, and when she began to question
+her heart she found that unconsciously it was entwining around him.
+
+"Yes," she said to herself, "I do like him; but I can never marry him.
+To the man I marry my heart must be as open as the flowers to the sun. I
+could not accept his hand and hide from him the secret of my birth; and
+I could not consent to choose the happiest lot on earth without first
+finding my poor heart-stricken and desolate mother. Perhaps some day I
+may have the courage to tell him my sad story, and then make my heart
+the sepulchre in which to bury all the love which might have gladdened
+and brightened my whole life."
+
+During the sad and weary months which ensued while the war dragged its
+slow length along, Dr. Gresham and Iola often met by the bedsides of the
+wounded and dying, and sometimes he would drop a few words at which her
+heart would beat quicker and her cheek flush more vividly. But he was so
+kind, tender, and respectful, that Iola had no idea he knew her race
+affiliations. She knew from unmistakable signs that Dr. Gresham had
+learned to love her, and that he had power to call forth the warmest
+affection of her soul; but she fought with her own heart and repressed
+its rising love. She felt that it was best for his sake that they should
+not marry. When she saw the evidences of his increasing love she
+regretted that she had not informed him at the first of the barrier that
+lay between them; it might have saved him unnecessary suffering.
+Thinking thus, Iola resolved, at whatever cost of pain it might be to
+herself, to explain to Dr. Gresham what she meant by the insurmountable
+barrier. Iola, after a continuous strain upon her nervous system for
+months, began to suffer from general debility and nervous depression.
+Dr. Gresham saw the increasing pallor on Iola's cheek and the loss of
+buoyancy in her step. One morning, as she turned from the bed of a young
+soldier for whom she had just written a letter to his mother, there was
+such a look of pity and sorrow on her face that Dr. Gresham's whole
+heart went out in sympathy for her, and he resolved to break the silence
+he had imposed upon himself.
+
+"Iola," he said, and there was a depth of passionate tenderness in his
+voice, a volume of unexpressed affection in his face, "you are wronging
+yourself. You are sinking beneath burdens too heavy for you to bear. It
+seems to me that besides the constant drain upon your sympathies there
+is some great sorrow preying upon your life; some burden that ought to
+be shared." He gazed upon her so ardently that each cord of her heart
+seemed to vibrate, and unbidden tears sprang to her lustrous eyes, as
+she said, sadly:--
+
+"Doctor, you are right."
+
+"Iola, my heart is longing to lift those burdens from your life. Love,
+like faith, laughs at impossibilities. I can conceive of no barrier too
+high for my love to surmount. Consent to be mine, as nothing else on
+earth is mine."
+
+"Doctor, you know not what you ask," replied Iola. "Instead of coming
+into this hospital a self-sacrificing woman, laying her every gift and
+advantage upon the altar of her country, I came as a rescued slave, glad
+to find a refuge from a fate more cruel than death; a fate from which I
+was rescued by the intervention of my dear dead friend, Thomas Anderson.
+I was born on a lonely plantation on the Mississippi River, where the
+white population was very sparse. We had no neighbors who ever visited
+us; no young white girls with whom I ever played in my childhood; but,
+never having enjoyed such companionship, I was unconscious of any sense
+of privation. Our parents spared no pains to make the lives of their
+children (we were three) as bright and pleasant as they could. Our home
+was so happy. We had a large number of servants, who were devoted to us.
+I never had the faintest suspicion that there was any wrongfulness in
+slavery, and I never dreamed of the dreadful fate which broke in a storm
+of fearful anguish over our devoted heads. Papa used to take us to New
+Orleans to see the Mardi Gras, and while there we visited the theatres
+and other places of amusement and interest. At home we had books,
+papers, and magazines to beguile our time. Perfectly ignorant of my
+racial connection, I was sent to a Northern academy, and soon made many
+friends among my fellow-students. Companionship with girls of my own age
+was a new experience, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I spent several years
+in New England, and was busily preparing for my commencement exercises
+when my father was snatched away--died of yellow fever on his way North
+to witness my graduation. Through a stratagem, I was brought hurriedly
+from the North, and found that my father was dead; that his nearest
+kinsman had taken possession of our property; that my mother's marriage
+had been declared illegal, because of an imperceptible infusion of negro
+blood in her veins; and that she and her children had been remanded to
+slavery. I was torn from my mother, sold as a slave, and subjected to
+cruel indignities, from which I was rescued and a place given to me in
+this hospital. Doctor, I did not choose my lot in life, but I have no
+other alternative than to accept it. The intense horror and agony I felt
+when I was first told the story are over. Thoughts and purposes have
+come to me in the shadow I should never have learned in the sunshine. I
+am constantly rousing myself up to suffer and be strong. I intend, when
+this conflict is over, to cast my lot with the freed people as a helper,
+teacher, and friend. I have passed through a fiery ordeal, but this
+ministry of suffering will not be in vain. I feel that my mind has
+matured beyond my years. I am a wonder to myself. It seems as if years
+had been compressed into a few short months. In telling you this, do you
+not, can you not, see that there is an insurmountable barrier between
+us?"
+
+"No, I do not," replied Dr. Gresham. "I love you for your own sake. And
+with this the disadvantages of birth have nothing to do."
+
+"You say so now, and I believe that you are perfectly sincere. Today
+your friendship springs from compassion, but, when that subsides, might
+you not look on me as an inferior?"
+
+"Iola, you do not understand me. You think too meanly of me. You must
+not judge me by the worst of my race. Surely our country has produced a
+higher type of manhood than the men by whom you were tried and tempted."
+
+"Tried, but not tempted," said Iola, as a deep flush overspread her
+face; "I was never tempted. I was sold from State to State as an article
+of merchandise. I had outrages heaped on me which might well crimson the
+cheek of honest womanhood with shame, but I never fell into the clutches
+of an owner for whom I did not feel the utmost loathing and intensest
+horror. I have heard men talk glibly of the degradation of the negro,
+but there is a vast difference between abasement of condition and
+degradation of character. I was abased, but the men who trampled on me
+were the degraded ones."
+
+"But, Iola, you must not blame all for what a few have done."
+
+"A few have done? Did not the whole nation consent to our abasement?"
+asked Iola, bitterly.
+
+"No, Miss Iola, we did not all consent to it. Slavery drew a line of
+cleavage in this country. Although we were under one government we were
+farther apart in our sentiments than if we had been divided by lofty
+mountains and separated by wide seas. And had not Northern sentiment
+been brought to bear against the institution, slavery would have been
+intact until to-day."
+
+"But, Doctor, the negro is under a social ban both North and South. Our
+enemies have the ear of the world, and they can depict us just as they
+please."
+
+"That is true; but the negro has no other alternative than to make
+friends of his calamities. Other men have plead his cause, but out of
+the race must come its own defenders. With them the pen must be
+mightier than the sword. It is the weapon of civilization, and they must
+use it in their own defense. We cannot tell what is in them until they
+express themselves."
+
+"Yes, and I think there is a large amount of latent and undeveloped
+ability in the race, which they will learn to use for their own benefit.
+This my hospital experience has taught me."
+
+"But," said Dr. Gresham, "they must learn to struggle, labor, and
+achieve. By facts, not theories, they will be judged in the future. The
+Anglo-Saxon race is proud, domineering, aggressive, and impatient of a
+rival, and, as I think, has more capacity for dragging down a weaker
+race than uplifting it. They have been a conquering and achieving
+people, marvelous in their triumphs of mind over matter. They have
+manifested the traits of character which are developed by success and
+victory."
+
+"And yet," said Iola, earnestly, "I believe the time will come when the
+civilization of the negro will assume a better phase than you
+Anglo-Saxons possess. You will prove unworthy of your high vantage
+ground if you only use your superior ability to victimize feebler races
+and minister to a selfish greed of gold and a love of domination."
+
+"But, Iola," said Dr. Gresham, a little impatiently, "what has all this
+to do with our marriage? Your complexion is as fair as mine. What is to
+hinder you from sharing my Northern home, from having my mother to be
+your mother?" The tones of his voice grew tender, as he raised his eyes
+to Iola's face and anxiously awaited her reply.
+
+"Dr. Gresham," said Iola, sadly, "should the story of my life be
+revealed to your family, would they be willing to ignore all the
+traditions of my blood, forget all the terrible humiliations through
+which I have passed? I have too much self-respect to enter your home
+under a veil of concealment. I have lived in New England. I love the
+sunshine of her homes and the freedom of her institutions. But New
+England is not free from racial prejudice, and I would never enter a
+family where I would be an unwelcome member."
+
+"Iola, dear, you have nothing to fear in that direction."
+
+"Doctor," she said, and a faint flush rose to her cheek, "suppose we
+should marry, and little children in after years should nestle in our
+arms, and one of them show unmistakable signs of color, would you be
+satisfied?"
+
+She looked steadfastly into his eyes, which fell beneath her
+truth-seeking gaze. His face flushed as if the question had suddenly
+perplexed him. Iola saw the irresolution on his face, and framed her
+answer accordingly.
+
+"Ah, I see," she said, "that you are puzzled. You had not taken into
+account what might result from such a marriage. I will relieve you from
+all embarrassment by simply saying I cannot be your wife. When the war
+is over I intend to search the country for my mother. Doctor, were you
+to give me a palace-like home, with velvet carpets to hush my tread, and
+magnificence to surround my way, I should miss her voice amid all other
+tones, her presence amid every scene. Oh, you do not know how hungry my
+heart is for my mother! Were I to marry you I would carry an aching
+heart into your home and dim its brightness. I have resolved never to
+marry until I have found my mother. The hope of finding her has colored
+all my life since I regained my freedom. It has helped sustain me in the
+hour of fearful trial. When I see her I want to have the proud
+consciousness that I bring her back a heart just as loving, faithful,
+and devoted as the last hour we parted."
+
+"And is this your final answer?"
+
+"It is. I have pledged my life to that resolve, and I believe time and
+patience will reward me."
+
+There was a deep shadow of sorrow and disappointment on the face of Dr.
+Gresham as he rose to leave. For a moment he held her hand as it lay
+limp in his own. If she wavered in her determination it was only for a
+moment. No quivering of her lip or paling of her cheek betrayed any
+struggle of her heart. Her resolve was made, and his words were
+powerless to swerve her from the purpose of her soul.
+
+After Dr. Gresham had gone Iola went to her room and sat buried in
+thought. It seemed as if the fate of Tantalus was hers, without his
+crimes. Here she was lonely and heart-stricken, and unto her was
+presented the offer of love, home, happiness, and social position; the
+heart and hand of a man too noble and generous to refuse her
+companionship for life on account of the blood in her veins. Why should
+she refuse these desirable boons? But, mingling with these beautiful
+visions of manly love and protecting care she saw the anguish of her
+heart-stricken mother and the pale, sweet face of her dying sister, as
+with her latest breath she had said, "Iola, stand by mamma!"
+
+"No, no," she said to herself; "I was right to refuse Dr. Gresham. How
+dare I dream of happiness when my poor mamma's heart may be slowly
+breaking? I should be ashamed to live and ashamed to die were I to
+choose a happy lot for myself and leave poor mamma to struggle alone. I
+will never be satisfied till I get tidings of her. And when I have found
+her I will do all I can to cheer and brighten the remnant of her life."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+HARRY LEROY.
+
+It was several weeks after Iola had written to her brother that her
+letter reached him. The trusty servant to whom she delivered it watched
+his opportunity to mail it. At last he succeeded in slipping it into
+Lorraine's mail and dropping them all into the post office together.
+Harry was studying at a boys' academy in Maine. His father had given
+that State the preference because, while on a visit there, he had been
+favorably impressed with the kindness and hospitality of the people. He
+had sent his son a large sum of money, and given him permission to spend
+awhile with some school-chums till he was ready to bring the family
+North, where they could all spend the summer together. Harry had
+returned from his visit, and was looking for letters and remittances
+from home, when a letter, all crumpled, was handed him by the principal
+of the academy. He recognized his sister's handwriting and eagerly
+opened the letter. As he read, he turned very pale; then a deep flush
+overspread his face and an angry light flashed from his eyes. As he read
+on, his face became still paler; he gasped for breath and fell into a
+swoon. Appalled at the sudden change which had swept over him like a
+deadly sirocco, the principal rushed to the fallen boy, picked up the
+missive that lay beside him, and immediately rang for help and
+dispatched for the doctor. The doctor came at once and was greatly
+puzzled. Less than an hour before, he had seen him with a crowd of
+merry, laughter-loving boys, apparently as light-hearted and joyous as
+any of them; now he lay with features drawn and pinched, his face deadly
+pale, as if some terrible suffering had sent all the blood in his veins
+to stagnate around his heart. Harry opened his eyes, shuddered, and
+relapsed into silence. The doctor, all at sea in regard to the cause of
+the sudden attack, did all that he could to restore him to consciousness
+and quiet the perturbation of his spirit. He succeeded, but found he was
+strangely silent. A terrible shock had sent a tremor through every
+nerve, and the doctor watched with painful apprehension its effect upon
+his reason. Giving him an opiate and enjoining that he should be kept
+perfectly quiet, the doctor left the room, sought the principal, and
+said:--
+
+"Mr. Bascom, here is a case that baffles my skill. I saw that boy pass
+by my window not more than half an hour ago, full of animation, and now
+he lies hovering between life and death. I have great apprehension for
+his reason. Can you throw any light on the subject?"
+
+Mr. Bascom hesitated.
+
+"I am not asking you as a matter of idle curiosity, but as a physician.
+I must have all the light I can get in making my diagnosis of the case."
+
+The principal arose, went to his desk, took out the letter which he had
+picked up from the floor, and laid it in the physician's hand. As the
+doctor read, a look of indignant horror swept over his face. Then he
+said: "Can it be possible! I never suspected such a thing. It must be a
+cruel, senseless hoax."
+
+"Doctor," said Mr. Bascom, "I have been a life-long Abolitionist and
+have often read of the cruelties and crimes of American slavery, but
+never before did I realize the low moral tone of the social life under
+which such shameless cruelties could be practiced on a defenseless widow
+and her orphaned children. Let me read the letter again. Just look at
+it, all tear-blotted and written with a trembling hand:--
+
+
+    'DEAR BROTHER:--I have dreadful news for you and I hardly know how
+    to tell it. Papa and Gracie are both dead. He died of yellow fever.
+    Mamma is almost distracted. Papa's cousin has taken possession of
+    our property, and instead of heirs we are chattels. Mamma has
+    explained the whole situation to me. She was papa's slave before she
+    married. He loved her, manumitted, educated, and married her. When
+    he died Mr. Lorraine entered suit for his property and Judge
+    Starkins has decided in his favor. The decree of the court has made
+    their marriage invalid, robbed us of our inheritance, and remanded
+    us all to slavery. Mamma is too wretched to attempt to write
+    herself, but told me to entreat you not to attempt to come home. You
+    can do us no good, and that mean, cruel Lorraine may do you much
+    harm. Don't attempt, I beseech you, to come home. Show this letter
+    to Mr. Bascom and let him advise you what to do. But don't, for our
+    sake, attempt to come home.
+
+    'Your heart-broken sister,
+
+    'IOLA LEROY.'"
+
+
+"This," said the doctor, "is a very awkward affair. The boy is too ill
+to be removed. It is doubtful if the nerves which have trembled with
+such fearful excitement will ever recover their normal condition. It is
+simply a work of mercy to watch over him with the tenderest care."
+
+Fortunately for Harry he had fallen into good hands, and the most tender
+care and nursing were bestowed upon him. For awhile Harry was strangely
+silent, never referring to the terrible misfortune which had so suddenly
+overshadowed his life. It seemed as if the past were suddenly blotted
+out of his memory. But he was young and of an excellent constitution,
+and in a few months he was slowly recovering.
+
+"Doctor," said he one day, as the physician sat at his bedside, "I seem
+to have had a dreadful dream, and to have dreamt that my father was
+dead, and my mother and sister were in terrible trouble, but I could not
+help them. Doctor, was it a dream, or was it a reality? It could not
+have been a dream, for when I fell asleep the grass was green and the
+birds were singing, but now the winds are howling and the frost is on
+the ground. Doctor, tell me how it is? How long have I been here?"
+
+Sitting by his bedside, and taking his emaciated hand in his, the doctor
+said, in a kind, fatherly tone: "My dear boy, you have been very ill,
+and everything depends on your keeping quiet, very quiet."
+
+As soon as he was strong enough the principal gave him his letter to
+read.
+
+"But, Mr. Bascom," Harry said, "I do not understand this. It says my
+mother and father were legally married. How could her marriage be set
+aside and her children robbed of their inheritance? This is not a
+heathen country. I hardly think barbarians would have done any worse;
+yet this is called a Christian country."
+
+"Christian in name," answered the principal. "When your father left you
+in my care, knowing that I was an Abolitionist, he confided his secret
+to me. He said that life was full of vicissitudes, and he wished you to
+have a good education. He wanted you and your sister to be prepared for
+any emergency. He did not wish you to know that you had negro blood in
+your veins. He knew that the spirit of caste pervaded the nation, North
+and South, and he was very anxious to have his children freed from its
+depressing influences. He did not intend to stay South after you had
+finished your education."
+
+"But," said Harry, "I cannot understand. If my mother was lawfully
+married, how could they deprive her of her marital rights?"
+
+"When Lorraine," continued Mr. Bascom, "knew your father was dead, all
+he had to do was to find a flaw in her manumission, and, of course, the
+marriage became illegal. She could not then inherit property nor
+maintain her freedom; and her children followed her condition."
+
+Harry listened attentively. Things which had puzzled him once now became
+perfectly clear. He sighed heavily, and, turning to the principal, said:
+"I see things in a new light. Now I remember that none of the planters'
+wives ever visited my mother; and we never went to church except when my
+father took us to the Cathedral in New Orleans. My father was a
+Catholic, but I don't think mamma is."
+
+"Now, Harry," said the principal, "life is before you. If you wish to
+stay North, I will interest friends in your behalf, and try to get you a
+situation. Going South is out of the question. It is probable that by
+this time your mother and sister are removed from their home. You are
+powerless to fight against the law that enslaved them. Should you fall
+into the clutches of Lorraine, he might give you a great deal of
+trouble. You would be pressed into the Confederate service to help them
+throw up barricades, dig trenches, and add to the strength of those who
+enslaved your mother and sister."
+
+"Never! never!" cried Harry. "I would rather die than do it! I should
+despise myself forever if I did."
+
+"Numbers of our young men," said Mr. Bascom, "have gone to the war which
+is now raging between North and South. You have been sick for several
+months, and much has taken place of which you are unaware. Would you
+like to enlist?"
+
+"I certainly would; not so much for the sake of fighting for the
+Government, as with the hope of finding my mother and sister, and
+avenging their wrongs. I should like to meet Lorraine on the
+battle-field."
+
+"What kind of a regiment would you prefer, white or colored?"
+
+Harry winced when the question was asked. He felt the reality of his
+situation as he had not done before. It was as if two paths had suddenly
+opened before him, and he was forced to choose between them. On one side
+were strength, courage, enterprise, power of achievement, and memories
+of a wonderful past. On the other side were weakness, ignorance,
+poverty, and the proud world's social scorn. He knew nothing of colored
+people except as slaves, and his whole soul shrank from equalizing
+himself with them. He was fair enough to pass unchallenged among the
+fairest in the land, and yet a Christless prejudice had decreed that he
+should be a social pariah. He sat, thoughtful and undecided, as if a
+great struggle were going on in his mind. Finally the principal said, "I
+do not think that you should be assigned to a colored regiment because
+of the blood in your veins, but you will have, in such a regiment,
+better facilities for finding your mother and sister."
+
+"You are right, Mr. Bascom. To find my mother and sister I call no task
+too heavy, no sacrifice too great."
+
+Since Harry had come North he had learned to feel profound pity for the
+slave. But there is a difference between looking on a man as an object
+of pity and protecting him as such, and being identified with him and
+forced to share his lot. To take his place with them on the arena of
+life was the test of his life, but love was stronger than pride.
+
+His father was dead. His mother and sister were enslaved by a mockery of
+justice. It was more than a matter of choice where he should stand on
+the racial question. He felt that he must stand where he could strike
+the most effective blow for their freedom. With that thought strong in
+his mind, and as soon as he recovered, he went westward to find a
+colored regiment. He told the recruiting officer that he wished to be
+assigned to a colored regiment.
+
+"Why do you wish that," said the officer, looking at Harry with an air
+of astonishment.
+
+"Because I am a colored man."
+
+The officer look puzzled. It was a new experience. He had seen colored
+men with fair complexions anxious to lose their identity with the
+colored race and pose as white men, but here was a man in the flush of
+his early manhood, to whom could come dreams of promotion from a simple
+private to a successful general, deliberately turning his back upon
+every gilded hope and dazzling opportunity, to cast his lot with the
+despised and hated negro.
+
+"I do not understand you," said the officer. "Surely you are a white
+man, and, as such, I will enlist you in a white regiment."
+
+"No," said Harry, firmly, "I am a colored man, and unless I can be
+assigned to a colored regiment I am not willing to enter the army."
+
+"Well," said the officer, "you are the d----d'st fool I ever saw--a man
+as white as you are turning his back upon his chances of promotion! But
+you can take your choice."
+
+So Harry was permitted to enter the army. By his promptness and valor he
+soon won the hearts of his superior officers, and was made drill
+sergeant. Having nearly all of his life been used to colored people, and
+being taught by his mother to be kind and respectful to them, he was
+soon able to gain their esteem. He continued in the regiment until Grant
+began the task of opening the Mississippi. After weeks of fruitless
+effort, Grant marched his army down the west side of the river, while
+the gunboats undertook the perilous task of running the batteries. Men
+were found for the hour. The volunteers offered themselves in such
+numbers that lots were cast to determine who should have the opportunity
+to enlist in an enterprise so fraught with danger. Harry was one on whom
+the lot fell.
+
+Grant crossed the river below, coiled his forces around Vicksburg like
+a boa-constrictor, and held it in his grasp. After forty-seven days of
+endurance the city surrendered to him. Port Hudson, after the surrender
+of Vicksburg, gave up the unequal contest, and the Mississippi was open
+to the Gulf.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+ROBERT AND HIS COMPANY.
+
+"Good morning, gentlemen," said Robert Johnson, as he approached Colonel
+Robinson, the commander of the post, who was standing at the door of his
+tent, talking with Captain Sybil.
+
+"Good morning," responded Colonel Robinson, "I am glad you have come. I
+was just about to send for you. How is your company getting on?"
+
+"First rate, sir," replied Robert.
+
+"In good health?"
+
+"Excellent. They are all in good health and spirits. Our boys are used
+to hardship and exposure, and the hope of getting their freedom puts new
+snap into them."
+
+"I am glad of it," said Colonel Robinson. "They make good fighters and
+very useful allies. Last night we received very valuable intelligence
+from some fugitives who had escaped through the Rebel lines. I do not
+think many of the Northern people realize the service they have been to
+us in bringing information and helping our boys when escaping from Rebel
+prisons. I never knew a full-blooded negro to betray us. A month ago,
+when we were encamped near the Rebel lines, a colored woman managed
+admirably to keep us posted as to the intended movements of the enemy.
+She was engaged in laundry work, and by means of hanging her sheets in
+different ways gave us the right signals."
+
+"I hope," said Captain Sybil, "that the time will come when some
+faithful historian will chronicle all the deeds of daring and-service
+these people have performed during this struggle, and give them due
+credit therefor."
+
+"Our great mistake," said Colonel Robinson, "was our long delay in
+granting them their freedom, and even what we have done is only partial.
+The border States still retain their slaves. We ought to have made a
+clean sweep of the whole affair. Slavery is a serpent which we nourished
+in its weakness, and now it is stinging us in its strength."
+
+"I think so, too," said Captain Sybil. "But in making his proclamation
+of freedom, perhaps Mr. Lincoln went as far as he thought public opinion
+would let him."
+
+"It is remarkable," said Colonel Robinson, "how these Secesh hold out.
+It surprises me to see how poor white men, who, like the negroes, are
+victims of slavery, rally around the Stripes and Bars. These men, I
+believe, have been looked down on by the aristocratic slaveholders, and
+despised by the well-fed and comfortable slaves, yet they follow their
+leaders into the very jaws of death; face hunger, cold, disease, and
+danger; and all for what? What, under heaven, are they fighting for?
+Now, the negro, ignorant as he is, has learned to regard our flag as a
+banner of freedom, and to look forward to his deliverance as a
+consequence of the overthrow of the Rebellion."
+
+"I think," said Captain Sybil "that these ignorant white men have been
+awfully deceived. They have had presented to their imaginations utterly
+false ideas of the results of Secession, and have been taught that its
+success would bring them advantages which they had never enjoyed in the
+Union."
+
+"And I think," said Colonel Robinson, "that the women and ministers have
+largely fed and fanned the fires of this Rebellion, and have helped to
+create a public opinion which has swept numbers of benighted men into
+the conflict. Well might one of their own men say, 'This is a rich man's
+war and a poor man's fight.' They were led into it through their
+ignorance, and held in it by their fears."
+
+"I think," said Captain Sybil, "that if the public school had been
+common through the South this war would never have occurred. Now things
+have reached such a pass that able-bodied men must report at
+headquarters, or be treated as deserters. Their leaders are desperate
+men, of whom it has been said: 'They have robbed the cradle and the
+grave.'"
+
+"They are fighting against fearful odds," said Colonel Robinson, "and
+their defeat is only a question of time."
+
+"As soon," said Robert, "as they fired on Fort Sumter, Uncle Daniel, a
+dear old father who had been praying and hoping for freedom, said to me:
+'Dey's fired on Fort Sumter, an' mark my words, Bob, de Norf's boun'
+ter whip.'"
+
+"Had we freed the slaves at the outset," said Captain Sybil, "we
+wouldn't have given the Rebels so much opportunity to strengthen
+themselves by means of slave labor in raising their crops, throwing up
+their entrenchments, and building their fortifications. Slavery was a
+deadly cancer eating into the life of the nation; but, somehow, it had
+cast such a glamour over us that we have acted somewhat as if our
+national safety were better preserved by sparing the cancer than by
+cutting it out."
+
+"Political and racial questions have sadly complicated this matter,"
+said Colonel Robinson. "The North is not wholly made up of anti-slavery
+people. At the beginning of this war we were not permeated with justice,
+and so were not ripe for victory. The battle of Bull Run inaugurated the
+war by a failure. Instead of glory we gathered shame, and defeat in
+place of victory."
+
+"We have been slow," said Captain Sybil, "to see our danger and to do
+our duty. Our delay has cost us thousands of lives and millions of
+dollars. Yet it may be it is all for the best. Our national wound was
+too deep to be lightly healed. When the President issued his
+Emancipation Proclamation my heart overflowed with joy, and I said:
+'This is the first bright rift in the war cloud.'"
+
+"And did you really think that they would accept the terms of freedom
+and lay down their arms?" asked Robert.
+
+"I hardly thought they would," continued Captain Sybil. "I did not think
+that their leaders would permit it. I believe the rank and file of their
+army are largely composed of a mass of ignorance, led, manipulated, and
+moulded by educated and ambitious wickedness. In attempting to overthrow
+the Union, a despotism and reign of terror were created which
+encompassed them as fetters of iron, and they will not accept the
+conditions until they have reached the last extremity. I hardly think
+they are yet willing to confess that such extremity has been reached."
+
+"Captain," said Robert, as they left Colonel Robinson's tent, "I have
+lived all my life where I have had a chance to hear the 'Secesh' talk,
+and when they left their papers around I used to read everything I could
+lay my hands on. It seemed to me that the big white men not only ruled
+over the poor whites and made laws for them, but over the whole nation."
+
+"That was so," replied Captain Sybil. "The North was strong but
+forbearing. It was busy in trade and commerce, and permitted them to
+make the Northern States hunting-grounds for their slaves. When we sent
+back Simms and Burns from beneath the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument and
+Faneuil Hall, they mistook us; looked upon us as a lot of
+money-grabbers, who would be willing to purchase peace at any price. I
+do not believe when they fired on the 'Star of the West' that they had
+the least apprehension of the fearful results which were to follow their
+madness and folly."
+
+"Well, Captain," asked Robert, "if the free North would submit to be
+called on to help them catch their slaves, what could be expected of us,
+who all our lives had known no other condition than that of slavery? How
+much braver would you have been, if your first recollections had been
+those of seeing your mother maltreated, your father cruelly beaten, or
+your fellow-servants brutally murdered? I wonder why they never enslaved
+the Indians!"
+
+"You are mistaken, Robert, if you think the Indians were never enslaved.
+I have read that the Spaniards who visited the coasts of America
+kidnapped thousands of Indians, whom they sent to Europe and the West
+Indies as slaves. Columbus himself, we are informed, captured five
+hundred natives, and sent them to Spain. The Indian had the lesser power
+of endurance, and Las Cassas suggested the enslavement of the negro,
+because he seemed to possess greater breadth of physical organization
+and stronger power of endurance. Slavery was an old world's crime which,
+I have heard, the Indians never practiced among themselves. Perhaps it
+would have been harder to reduce them to slavery and hold them in
+bondage when they had a vast continent before them, where they could
+hide in the vastnesses of its mountains or the seclusion of its forests,
+than it was for white men to visit the coasts of Africa and, with their
+superior knowledge, obtain cargoes of slaves, bring them across the
+ocean, hem them in on the plantations, and surround them with a pall of
+dense ignorance."
+
+"I remember," said Robert, "in reading a history I once came across at
+our house, that when the Africans first came to this country they did
+not all speak one language. Some had only met as mutual enemies. They
+were not all one color, their complexions ranging from tawny yellow to
+deep black."
+
+"Yes," said Captain Sybil, "and in dealing with the negro we wanted his
+labor; in dealing with the Indian we wanted his lands. For one we had
+weapons of war; for the other we had real and invisible chains, the
+coercion of force, and the terror of the unseen world."
+
+"That's exactly so, Captain! When I was a boy I used to hear the old
+folks tell what would happen to bad people in another world; about the
+devil pouring hot lead down people's throats and stirring them up with a
+pitch-fork; and I used to get so scared that I would be afraid to go to
+bed at night. I don't suppose the Indians ever heard of such things,
+or, if they had, I never heard of them being willing to give away all
+their lands on earth, and quietly wait for a home in heaven."
+
+"But, surely, Robert, you do not think religion has degraded the negro?"
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't say that. But a man is in a tight fix when he takes his
+part, like Nat Turner or Denmark Veasy, and is made to fear that he will
+be hanged in this world and be burned in the next. And, since I come to
+think of it, we colored folks used to get mightily mixed up about our
+religion. Mr. Gundover had on his plantation a real smart man. He was
+religious, but he would steal."
+
+"Oh, Robert," queried Sybil, "how could he be religious and steal?"
+
+"He didn't think," retorted Robert, "it was any harm to steal from his
+master. I guess he thought it was right to get from his master all he
+could. He would have thought it wrong to steal from his fellow-servants.
+He thought that downright mean, but I wouldn't have insured the lives of
+Gundover's pigs and chickens, if Uncle Jack got them in a tight place.
+One day there was a minister stopping with Mr. Gundover. As a matter of
+course, in speaking of his servants, he gave Jack's sins an airing. He
+would much rather confess Jack's sins than his own. Now Gundover wanted
+to do two things, save his pigs and poultry, and save Jack's soul. He
+told the minister that Jack was a liar and a thief, and gave the
+minister a chance to talk with Uncle Jack about the state of his soul.
+Uncle Jack listened very quietly, and when taxed with stealing his
+master's wheat he was ready with an answer. 'Now Massa Parker,' said
+Jack, 'lem'me tell yer jis' how it war 'bout dat wheat. Wen ole Jack
+com'd down yere, dis place war all growed up in woods. He go ter work,
+clared up de groun' an' plowed, an' planted, an' riz a crap, an' den wen
+it war all done, he hadn't a dollar to buy his ole woman a gown; an' he
+jis' took a bag ob wheat.'"
+
+"What did Mr. Parker say?" asked Sybil.
+
+"I don't know, though I reckon he didn't think it was a bad steal after
+all, but I don't suppose he told Jack so. When he came to the next
+point, about Jack's lying, I suppose he thought he had a clear case; but
+Jack was equal to the occasion."
+
+"How did he clear up that charge?" interrogated Captain Sybil.
+
+"Finely. I think if he had been educated he would have made a first-rate
+lawyer. He said, 'Marse Parker, dere's old Joe. His wife don't lib on
+dis plantation. Old Joe go ober ter see her, but he stayed too long, an'
+didn't git back in time fer his work. Massa's oberseer kotched him an'
+cut him all up. When de oberseer went inter de house, pore old Joe war
+all tired an' beat up, an' so he lay down by de fence corner and go ter
+sleep. Bimeby Massa oberseer com'd an' axed, "all bin a workin' libely?"
+I say "Yes, Massa."' Then said Mr. Parker, 'You were lying, Joe had been
+sleeping, not working.' 'I know's dat, but ef I tole on Joe, Massa
+oberseer cut him all up again, and Massa Jesus says, "Blessed am de
+Peacemaker."' I heard, continued Robert, that Mr. Parker said to
+Gundover, 'You seem to me like a man standing in a stream where the
+blood of Jesus can reach you, but you are standing between it and your
+slaves. How will you answer that in the Day of Judgment?'"
+
+"What did Gundover say?" asked Captain Sybil.
+
+"He turned pale, and said, 'For God's sake don't speak of the Day of
+Judgment in connection with slavery.'"
+
+Just then a messenger brought a communication to Captain Sybil. He read
+it attentively, and, turning to Robert, said, "Here are orders for an
+engagement at Five Forks to-morrow. Oh, this wasting of life and
+scattering of treasure might have been saved had we only been wiser. But
+the time is passing. Look after your company, and see that everything is
+in readiness as soon as possible."
+
+Carefully Robert superintended the arrangements for the coming battle of
+a strife which for years had thrown its crimson shadows over the land.
+The Rebels fought with a valor worthy of a better cause. The disaster of
+Bull Run had been retrieved. Sherman had made his famous march to the
+sea. Fighting Joe Hooker had scaled the stronghold of the storm king and
+won a victory in the palace chamber of the clouds; the Union soldiers
+had captured Columbia, replanted the Stars and Stripes in Charleston,
+and changed that old sepulchre of slavery into the cradle of a new-born
+freedom. Farragut had been as triumphant on water as the other generals
+had been victorious on land, and New Orleans had been wrenched from the
+hands of the Confederacy. The Rebel leaders were obstinate. Misguided
+hordes had followed them to defeat and death. Grant was firm and
+determined to fight it out if it took all summer. The closing battles
+were fought with desperate courage and firm resistance, but at last the
+South was forced to succumb. On the ninth day of April, 1865, General
+Lee surrendered to General Grant. The lost cause went down in blood and
+tears, and on the brows of a ransomed people God poured the chrism of a
+new era, and they stood a race newly anointed with freedom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+AFTER THE BATTLE.
+
+Very sad and heart-rending were the scenes with which Iola came in
+constant contact. Well may Christian men and women labor and pray for
+the time when nations shall learn war no more; when, instead of bloody
+conflicts, there shall be peaceful arbitration. The battle in which
+Robert fought, after his last conversation with Captain Sybil, was one
+of the decisive struggles of the closing conflict. The mills of doom and
+fate had ground out a fearful grist of agony and death,
+
+    "And lives of men and souls of States
+       Were thrown like chaff beyond the gates."
+
+Numbers were taken prisoners. Pale, young corpses strewed the earth;
+manhood was stricken down in the flush of its energy and prime. The
+ambulances brought in the wounded and dying. Captain Sybil laid down his
+life on the altar of freedom. His prediction was fulfilled. Robert was
+brought into the hospital, wounded, but not dangerously. Iola remembered
+him as being the friend of Tom Anderson, and her heart was drawn
+instinctively towards him. For awhile he was delirious, but her presence
+had a soothing effect upon him. He sometimes imagined that she was his
+mother, and he would tell her how he had missed her; and then at times
+he would call her sister. Iola, tender and compassionate, humored his
+fancies, and would sing to him in low, sweet tones some of the hymns
+she had learned in her old home in Mississippi. One day she sang a few
+verses of the hymn beginning with the words--
+
+    "Drooping souls no longer grieve,
+           Heaven is propitious;
+     If on Christ you do believe,
+          You will find Him precious."
+
+"That," said he, looking earnestly into Iola's face, "was my mother's
+hymn. I have not heard it for years. Where did you learn it?"
+
+Iola gazed inquiringly upon the face of her patient, and saw, by his
+clear gaze and the expression of his face, that his reason had returned.
+
+"In my home, in Mississippi, from my own dear mother," was Iola's reply.
+
+"Do you know where she learned it?" asked Robert.
+
+"When she was a little girl she heard her mother sing it. Years after, a
+Methodist preacher came to our house, sang this hymn, and left the book
+behind him. My father was a Catholic, but my mother never went to any
+church. I did not understand it then, but I do now. We used to sing
+together, and read the Bible when we were alone."
+
+"Do you remember where she came from, and who was her mother?" asked
+Robert, anxiously.
+
+"My dear friend, you must be quiet. The fever has left you, but I will
+not answer for the consequences if you get excited."
+
+Robert lay quiet and thoughtful for awhile and, seeing he was wakeful,
+Iola said, "Have you any friends to whom you would like to send a
+letter?"
+
+A pathetic expression flitted over his face, as he sadly replied, "I
+haven't, to my knowledge, a single relation in the world. When I was
+about ten years old my mother and sister were sold from me. It is more
+than twenty years since I have heard from them. But that hymn which you
+were singing reminded me so much of my mother! She used to sing it when
+I was a child. Please sing it again."
+
+Iola's voice rose soft and clear by his bedside, till he fell into a
+quiet slumber. She remembered that her mother had spoken of her brother
+before they had parted, and her interest and curiosity were awakened by
+Robert's story. While he slept, she closely scrutinized Robert's
+features, and detected a striking resemblance between him and her
+mother.
+
+"Oh, I _do_ wonder if he can be my mother's brother, from whom she has
+been separated so many years!"
+
+Anxious as she was to ascertain if there was any relationship between
+Robert and her mother, she forebore to question him on the subject which
+lay so near her heart. But one day, when he was so far recovered as to
+be able to walk around, he met Iola on the hospital grounds, and said to
+her:--
+
+"Miss Iola, you remind me so much of my mother and sister that I cannot
+help wondering if you are the daughter of my long-lost sister."
+
+"Do you think," asked Iola, "if you saw the likeness of your sister you
+would recognize her?"
+
+"I am afraid not. But there is one thing I can remember about her: she
+used to have a mole on her cheek, which mother used to tell her was her
+beauty spot."
+
+"Look at this," said Iola, handing him a locket which contained her
+mother's picture.
+
+Robert grasped the locket eagerly, scanned the features attentively,
+then, handing it back, said: "I have only a faint remembrance of my
+sister's features; but I never could recognize in that beautiful woman
+the dear little sister with whom I used to play. Oh, the cruelty of
+slavery! How it wrenched and tore us apart! Where is _your_ mother now?"
+
+"Oh, I cannot tell," answered Iola. "I left her in Mississippi. My
+father was a wealthy Creole planter, who fell in love with my mother.
+She was his slave, but he educated her in the North, freed, and married
+her. My father was very careful to have the fact of our negro blood
+concealed from us. I had not the slightest suspicion of it. When he was
+dead the secret was revealed. His white relations set aside my father's
+will, had his marriage declared invalid, and my mother and her children
+were remanded to slavery." Iola shuddered as she pronounced the horrid
+word, and grew deadly pale; but, regaining her self-possession,
+continued: "Now, that freedom has come, I intend to search for my mother
+until I find her."
+
+"I do not wonder," said Robert, "that we had this war. The nation had
+sinned enough to suffer."
+
+"Yes," said Iola, "if national sins bring down national judgments, then
+the nation is only reaping what it sowed."
+
+"What are your plans for the future, or have you any?" asked Robert.
+
+"I intend offering myself as a teacher in one of the schools which are
+being opened in different parts of the country," replied Iola. "As soon
+as I am able I will begin my search for my dear mother. I will advertise
+for her in the papers, hunt for her in the churches, and use all the
+means in my power to get some tidings of her and my brother Harry. What
+a cruel thing it was to separate us!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+FLAMES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.
+
+"Good morning," said Dr. Gresham, approaching Robert and Iola. "How are
+you both? You have mended rapidly," turning to Robert, "but then it was
+only a flesh wound. Your general health being good, and your blood in
+excellent condition, it was not hard for you to rally."
+
+"Where have you been, Doctor? I have a faint recollection of having seen
+you on the morning I was brought in from the field, but not since."
+
+"I have been on a furlough. I was running down through exhaustion and
+overwork, and I was compelled to go home for a few weeks' rest. But now,
+as they are about to close the hospital, I shall be permanently
+relieved. I am glad that this cruel strife is over. It seemed as if I
+had lived through ages during these last few years. In the early part of
+the war I lost my arm by a stray shot, and my armless sleeve is one of
+the mementos of battle I shall carry with me through life. Miss Leroy,"
+he continued, turning respectfully to Iola, "would you permit me to ask
+you, as I would have someone ask my sister under the same circumstances,
+if you have matured any plans for the future, or if I can be of the
+least service to you? If so, I would be pleased to render you any
+service in my power."
+
+"My purpose," replied Iola, "is to hunt for my mother, and to find her
+if she is alive. I am willing to go anywhere and do anything to find
+her. But I will need a standpoint from whence I can send out lines of
+inquiry. It must take time, in the disordered state of affairs, even to
+get a clue by which I may discover her whereabouts."
+
+"How would you like to teach?" asked the Doctor. "Schools are being
+opened all around us. Numbers of excellent and superior women are coming
+from the North to engage as teachers of the freed people. Would you be
+willing to take a school among these people? I think it will be uphill
+work. I believe it will take generations to get over the duncery of
+slavery. Some of these poor fellows who came into our camp did not know
+their right hands from their left, nor their ages, nor even the days of
+the month. It took me some time, in a number of cases, to understand
+their language. It saddened my heart to see such ignorance. One day I
+asked one a question, and he answered, "I no shum'."
+
+"What did he mean?" asked Iola.
+
+"That he did not see it," replied the doctor. "Of course, this does not
+apply to all of them. Some of them are wide-awake and sharp as steel
+traps. I think some of that class may be used in helping others."
+
+"I should be very glad to have an opportunity to teach," said Iola. "I
+used to be a great favorite among the colored children on my father's
+plantation."
+
+In a few days after this conversation the hospital was closed. The sick
+and convalescent were removed, and Iola obtained a position as a
+teacher. Very soon Iola realized that while she was heartily appreciated
+by the freedmen, she was an object of suspicion and dislike to their
+former owners. The North had conquered by the supremacy of the sword,
+and the South had bowed to the inevitable. But here was a new army that
+had come with an invasion of ideas, that had come to supplant ignorance
+with knowledge, and it was natural that its members should be unwelcome
+to those who had made it a crime to teach their slaves to read the name
+of the ever blessed Christ. But Iola had found her work, and the freed
+men their friend.
+
+When Iola opened her school she took pains to get acquainted with the
+parents of the children, and she gained their confidence and
+co-operation. Her face was a passport to their hearts. Ignorant of
+books, human faces were the scrolls from which they had been reading for
+ages. They had been the sunshine and shadow of their lives.
+
+Iola had found a school-room in the basement of a colored church, where
+the doors were willingly opened to her. Her pupils came from miles
+around, ready and anxious to get some "book larnin'." Some of the old
+folks were eager to learn, and it was touching to see the eyes which had
+grown dim under the shadows of slavery, donning spectacles and trying to
+make out the words. As Iola had nearly all of her life been accustomed
+to colored children she had no physical repulsions to overcome, no
+prejudices to conquer in dealing with parents and children. In their
+simple childish fashion they would bring her fruits and flowers, and
+gladden her lonely heart with little tokens of affection.
+
+One day a gentleman came to the school and wished to address the
+children. Iola suspended the regular order of the school, and the
+gentleman essayed to talk to them on the achievements of the white race,
+such as building steamboats and carrying on business. Finally, he asked
+how they did it?
+
+"They've got money," chorused the children.
+
+"But how did they get it?"
+
+"They took it from us," chimed the youngsters. Iola smiled, and the
+gentleman was nonplussed; but he could not deny that one of the powers
+of knowledge is the power of the strong to oppress the weak.
+
+The school was soon overcrowded with applicants, and Iola was forced to
+refuse numbers, because their quarters were too cramped. The school was
+beginning to lift up the home, for Iola was not satisfied to teach her
+children only the rudiments of knowledge. She had tried to lay the
+foundation of good character. But the elements of evil burst upon her
+loved and cherished work. One night the heavens were lighted with lurid
+flames, and Iola beheld the school, the pride and joy of her pupils and
+their parents, a smouldering ruin. Iola gazed with sorrowful dismay on
+what seemed the cruel work of an incendiary's torch. While she sat,
+mournfully contemplating the work of destruction, her children formed a
+procession, and, passing by the wreck of their school, sang:--
+
+    "Oh, do not be discouraged,
+       For Jesus is your friend."
+
+As they sang, the tears sprang to Iola's eyes, and she said to herself,
+"I am not despondent of the future of my people; there is too much
+elasticity in their spirits, too much hope in their hearts, to be
+crushed out by unreasoning malice."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+SEARCHING FOR LOST ONES.
+
+To bind anew the ties which slavery had broken and gather together the
+remnants of his scattered family became the earnest purpose of Robert's
+life. Iola, hopeful that in Robert she had found her mother's brother,
+was glad to know she was not alone in _her_ search. Having sent out
+lines of inquiry in different directions, she was led to hope, from some
+of the replies she had received, that her mother was living somewhere in
+Georgia.
+
+Hearing that a Methodist conference was to convene in that State, and
+being acquainted with the bishop of that district, she made arrangements
+to accompany him thither. She hoped to gather some tidings of her mother
+through the ministers gathered from different parts of that State.
+
+From her brother she had heard nothing since her father's death. On his
+way to the conference, the bishop had an engagement to dedicate a
+church, near the city of C----, in North Carolina. Iola was quite
+willing to stop there a few days, hoping to hear something of Robert
+Johnson's mother. Soon after she had seated herself in the cars she was
+approached by a gentleman, who reached out his hand to her, and greeted
+her with great cordiality. Iola looked up, and recognized him
+immediately as one of her last patients at the hospital. It was none
+other than Robert Johnson.
+
+"I am so glad to meet you," he said. "I am on my way to C---- in search
+of my mother. I want to see the person who sold her last, and, if
+possible, get some clew to the direction in which she went."
+
+"And I," said Iola, "am in search of _my_ mother. I am convinced that
+when we find those for whom we are searching they will prove to be very
+nearly related. Mamma said, before we were parted, that her brother had
+a red spot on his temple. If I could see that spot I should rest assured
+that my mother is your sister."
+
+"Then," said Robert, "I can give you that assurance," and smilingly he
+lifted his hair from his temple, on which was a large, red spot.
+
+"I am satisfied," exclaimed Iola, fixing her eyes, beaming with hope and
+confidence, on Robert. "Oh, I am so glad that I can, without the least
+hesitation, accept your services to join with me in the further search.
+What are your plans?"
+
+"To stop for awhile in C----," said Robert, "and gather all the
+information possible from those who sold and bought my mother. I intend
+to leave no stone un-turned in searching for her."
+
+"Oh, I _do_ hope that you will succeed. I expect to stop over there a
+few days, and I shall be so glad if, before I leave, I hear your search
+has been crowned with success, or, a least, that you have been put on
+the right track. Although I was born and raised in the midst of
+slavery, I had not the least idea of its barbarous selfishness till I
+was forced to pass through it. But we lived so much alone I had no
+opportunity to study it, except on our own plantation. My father and
+mother were very kind to their slaves. But it was slavery, all the same,
+and I hate it, root and branch."
+
+Just then the conductor called out the station.
+
+"We stop here," said Robert. "I am going to see Mrs. Johnson, and hunt
+up some of my old acquaintances. Where do you stop?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Iola. "I expect that friends will be here to
+meet us. Bishop B----, permit me to introduce you to Mr. Robert Johnson,
+whom I have every reason to believe is my mother's brother. Like myself,
+he is engaged in hunting up his lost relatives."
+
+"And I," said Robert, "am very much pleased to know that we are not
+without favorable clues."
+
+"Bishop," said Iola, "Mr. Johnson wishes to know where I am to stop. He
+is going on an exploring expedition, and wishes to let me know the
+result."
+
+"We stop at Mrs. Allston's, 313 New Street," said the bishop. "If I can
+be of any use to you, I am at your service."
+
+"Thank you," said Robert, lifting his hat, as he left them to pursue his
+inquiries about his long-lost mother.
+
+Quickly he trod the old familiar streets which led to his former home.
+He found Mrs. Johnson, but she had aged very fast since the war. She was
+no longer the lithe, active woman, with her proud manner and resolute
+bearing. Her eye had lost its brightness, her step its elasticity, and
+her whole appearance indicated that she was slowly sinking beneath a
+weight of sorrow which was heavier far than her weight of years. When
+she heard that Robert had called to see her she was going to receive him
+in the hall, as she would have done any of her former slaves, but her
+mind immediately changed when she saw him. He was not the light-hearted,
+careless, mischief-loving Robby of former days, but a handsome man,
+with heavy moustache, dark, earnest eyes, and proud military bearing. He
+smiled, and reached out his hand to her. She hardly knew how to address
+him. To her colored people were either boys and girls, or "aunties and
+uncles." She had never in her life addressed a colored person as "Mr. or
+Mrs." To do so now was to violate the social customs of the place. It
+would be like learning a new language in her old age. Robert immediately
+set her at ease by addressing her under the old familiar name of "Miss
+Nancy." This immediately relieved her of all embarrassment. She invited
+him into the sitting-room, and gave him a warm welcome.
+
+"Well, Robby," she said, "I once thought that you would have been the
+last one to leave me. You know I never ill-treated you, and I gave you
+everything you needed. People said that I was spoiling you. I thought
+you were as happy as the days were long. When I heard of other people's
+servants leaving them I used to say to myself, 'I can trust my Bobby; he
+will stick to me to the last.' But I fooled myself that time. Soon as
+the Yankee soldiers got in sight you left me without saying a word. That
+morning I came down into the kitchen and asked Linda, 'Where's Robert?
+Why hasn't he set the table?' She said 'she hadn't seen you since the
+night before.' I thought maybe you were sick, and I went to see, but you
+were not in your room. I couldn't believe at first that you were gone.
+Wasn't I always good to you?"
+
+"Oh, Miss Nancy," replied Robert; "you were good, but freedom was
+better."
+
+"Yes," she said, musingly, "I suppose I would have done the same. But,
+Robby, it did go hard with me at first. However, I soon found out that
+my neighbors had been going through the same thing. But its all over
+now. Let by-gones be by-gones. What are you doing now, and where are
+you living?"
+
+"I am living in the city of P----. I have opened a hardware store there.
+But just now I am in search of my mother and sister."
+
+"I hope that you may find them."
+
+"How long," asked Robert, "do you think it has been since they left
+here?"
+
+"Let me see; it must have been nearly thirty years. You got my letter?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am; thank you."
+
+"There have been great changes since you left here," Mrs. Johnson said.
+"Gundover died, and a number of colored men have banded together, bought
+his plantation, and divided it among themselves. And I hear they have a
+very nice settlement out there. I hope, since the Government has set
+them free, that they will succeed."
+
+After Robert's interview with Mrs. Johnson he thought he would visit the
+settlement and hunt up his old friends. He easily found the place. It
+was on a clearing in Gundover's woods, where Robert and Uncle Daniel had
+held their last prayer-meeting. Now the gloomy silence of those woods
+was broken by the hum of industry, the murmur of cheerful voices, and
+the merry laughter of happy children. Where they had trodden with fear
+and misgiving, freedmen walked with light and bounding hearts. The
+school-house had taken the place of the slave-pen and auction-block.
+"How is yer, ole boy?" asked one laborer of another.
+
+"Everything is lobly," replied the other. The blue sky arching overhead
+and the beauty of the scenery justified the expression.
+
+Gundover had died soon after the surrender. Frank Anderson had grown
+reckless and drank himself to death. His brother Tom had been killed in
+battle. Their mother, who was Gundover's daughter, had died insane.
+Their father had also passed away. The defeat of the Confederates, the
+loss of his sons, and the emancipation of his slaves, were blows from
+which he never recovered. As Robert passed leisurely along, delighted
+with the evidences of thrift and industry which constantly met his eye,
+he stopped to admire a garden filled with beautiful flowers, clambering
+vines, and rustic adornments.
+
+On the porch sat an elderly woman, darning stockings, the very
+embodiment of content and good humor. Robert looked inquiringly at her.
+On seeing him, she almost immediately exclaimed, "Shore as I'se born,
+dat's Robert! Look yere, honey, whar did yer come from? I'll gib my head
+fer a choppin' block ef dat ain't Miss Nancy's Bob. Ain't yer our Bobby?
+Shore yer is."
+
+"Of course I am," responded Robert. "It isn't anybody else. How did you
+know me?"
+
+"How did I know yer? By dem mischeebous eyes, ob course. I'd a knowed
+yer if I had seed yer in Europe."
+
+"In Europe, Aunt Linda? Where's that?"
+
+"I don't know. I specs its some big city, somewhar. But yer looks jis'
+splendid. Yer looks good 'nuff ter kiss."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Linda, don't say that. You make me blush."
+
+"Oh you go 'long wid yer. I specs yer's got a nice little wife up dar
+whar yer comes from, dat kisses yer ebery day, an' Sunday, too."
+
+"Is that the way your old man does you?"
+
+"Oh, no, not a bit. He isn't one ob de kissin' kine. But sit down," she
+said, handing Robert a chair. "Won't yer hab a glass ob milk? Boy, I'se
+a libin' in clover. Neber 'spected ter see sich good times in all my
+born days."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda," said Robert, seating himself near her, and drinking
+the glass of milk which she had handed him, "how goes the battle? How
+have you been getting on since freedom?"
+
+"Oh, fust rate, fust rate! Wen freedom com'd I jist lit out ob Miss
+Johnson's kitchen soon as I could. I wanted ter re'lize I war free, an'
+I couldn't, tell I got out er de sight and soun' ob ole Miss. When de
+war war ober an' de sogers war still stopping' yere, I made pies an'
+cakes, sole em to de sogers, an' jist made money han' ober fist. An' I
+kep' on a workin' an' a savin' till my ole man got back from de war wid
+his wages and his bounty money. I felt right set up an' mighty big wen
+we counted all dat money. We had neber seen so much money in our lives
+befo', let alone hab it fer ourselbs. An' I sez, 'John, you take dis
+money an' git a nice place wid it.' An' he sez, 'Dere's no use tryin',
+kase dey don't want ter sell us any lan'.' Ole Gundover said, 'fore he
+died, dat he would let de lan' grow up in trees 'fore he'd sell it to
+us. An' dere war Mr. Brayton; he buyed some lan' and sole it to some
+cullud folks, an' his ole frien's got so mad wid him dat dey wouldn't
+speak ter him, an' he war borned down yere. I tole ole Miss Anderson's
+daughter dat we wanted ter git some homes ob our ownselbs. She sez, 'Den
+you won't want ter work for us?' Jis' de same as ef we could eat an'
+drink our houses. I tell yer, Robby, dese white folks don't know
+eberything."
+
+"That's a fact, Aunt Linda."
+
+"Den I sez ter John, 'wen one door shuts anoder opens.' An' shore
+'nough, ole Gundover died, an' his place war all in debt, an' had to be
+sole. Some Jews bought it, but dey didn't want to farm it, so dey gib us
+a chance to buy it. Dem Jews hez been right helpful to cullud people wen
+dey hab lan' to sell. I reckon dey don't keer who buys it so long as dey
+gits de money. Well, John didn't gib in at fust; didn't want to let on
+his wife knowed more dan he did, an' dat he war ruled ober by a woman.
+Yer know he is an' ole Firginian, an' some ob dem ole Firginians do so
+lub to rule a woman. But I kep' naggin at him, till I specs he got tired
+of my tongue, an' he went and buyed dis piece ob lan'. Dis house war on
+it, an' war all gwine to wrack. It used to belong to John's ole marster.
+His wife died right in dis house, an' arter dat her husband went right
+to de dorgs; an' now he's in de pore-house. My! but ain't dem tables
+turned. When we knowed it war our own, warn't my ole man proud! I seed
+it in him, but he wouldn't let on. Ain't you men powerful 'ceitful?"
+
+"Oh, Aunt Linda, don't put me in with the rest!"
+
+"I don't know 'bout dat. Put you all in de bag for 'ceitfulness, an' I
+don't know which would git out fust."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda, I suppose by this time you know how to read and
+write?"
+
+"No, chile, sence freedom's com'd I'se bin scratchin' too hard to get a
+libin' to put my head down to de book."
+
+"But, Aunt Linda, it would be such company when your husband is away, to
+take a book. Do you never get lonesome?"
+
+"Chile, I ain't got no time ter get lonesome. Ef you had eber so many
+chickens to feed, an' pigs squealin' fer somethin' ter eat, an' yore
+ducks an' geese squakin' 'roun' yer, yer wouldn't hab time ter git
+lonesome."
+
+"But, Aunt Linda, you might be sick for months, and think what a comfort
+it would be if you could read your Bible."
+
+"Oh, I could hab prayin' and singin'. Dese people is mighty good 'bout
+prayin' by de sick. Why, Robby, I think it would gib me de hysterics ef
+I war to try to git book larnin' froo my pore ole head. How long is yer
+gwine to stay? An' whar is yer stoppin?"
+
+"I got here to-day," said Robert, "but I expect to stay several days."
+
+"Well, I wants yer to meet my ole man, an' talk 'bout ole times.
+Couldn't yer come an' stop wid me, or isn't my house sniptious 'nuff?"
+
+"Yes, thank you; but there is a young lady in town whom I think is my
+niece, my sister's daughter, and I want to be with her all I can."
+
+"Your niece! Whar did you git any niece from?"
+
+"Don't you remember," asked Robert, "that my mother had a little
+daughter, when Mrs. Johnson sold her? Well, I believe this young lady is
+that daughter's child."
+
+"Laws a marcy!" exclaimed Aunt Linda, "yer don't tell me so! Whar did
+yer ketch up wid her?"
+
+"I met her first," said Robert, "at the hospital here, when our poor Tom
+was dying; and when I was wounded at Five Forks she attended me in the
+field hospital there. She was just as good as gold."
+
+"Well, did I eber! You jis' fotch dat chile to see me, ef she ain't too
+fine. I'se pore, but I'se clean, an' I ain't forgot how ter git up good
+dinners. Now, I wants ter hab a good talk 'bout our feller-sarvants."
+
+"Yes, and I," said Robert, "want to hear all about Uncle Daniel, and
+Jennie, and Uncle Ben Tunnel."
+
+"Well, I'se got lots an' gobs ter tell yer. I'se kep' track ob dem all.
+Aunt Katie died an' went ter hebben in a blaze ob glory. Uncle Dan'el
+stayed on de place till Marse Robert com'd back. When de war war ober he
+war smashed all ter pieces. I did pity him from de bottom ob my heart.
+When he went ter de war he looked so brave an' han'some; an' wen he
+com'd back he looked orful. 'Fore he went he gib Uncle Dan'el a bag full
+ob money ter take kere ob. 'An wen he com'd back Uncle Dan'el gibed him
+ebery cent ob it. It warn't ebery white pusson he could hab trusted wid
+it. 'Cause yer know, Bobby, money's a mighty temptin' thing. Dey tells
+me dat Marster Robert los' a heap ob property by de war; but Marse
+Robert war always mighty good ter Uncle Dan'el and Aunt Katie. He war
+wid her wen she war dyin' an' she got holt his han' an' made him promise
+dat he would meet her in glory. I neber seed anybody so happy in my
+life. She singed an' prayed ter de last. I tell you dis ole time
+religion is good 'nuff fer me. Mr. Robert didn't stay yere long arter
+her, but I beliebs he went all right. But 'fore he went he looked out
+fer Uncle Dan'el. Did you see dat nice little cabin down dere wid de
+green shutters an' nice little garden in front? Well, 'fore Marse Robert
+died he gib Uncle Dan'el dat place, an' Miss Mary and de chillen looks
+arter him yet; an' he libs jis' as snug as a bug in a rug. I'se gwine
+ter axe him ter take supper wid you. He'll be powerful glad ter see
+you."
+
+"Do you ever go to see old Miss?" asked Robert.
+
+"Oh, yes; I goes ebery now and den. But she's jis' fell froo. Ole
+Johnson jis' drunk hisself to death. He war de biggest guzzler I eber
+seed in my life. Why, dat man he drunk up ebery thing he could lay his
+han's on. Sometimes he would go 'roun' tryin' to borrer money from pore
+cullud folks. 'Twas rale drefful de way dat pore feller did frow hisself
+away. But drink did it all. I tell you, Bobby, dat drink's a drefful
+thing wen it gits de upper han' ob you. You'd better steer clar ob it."
+
+"That's so," assented Robert.
+
+"I know'd Miss Nancy's fadder and mudder. Dey war mighty rich. Some ob
+de real big bugs. Marse Jim used to know dem, an' come ober ter de
+plantation, an' eat an' drink wen he got ready, an' stay as long as he
+choose. Ole Cousins used to have wine at dere table ebery day, an' Marse
+Jim war mighty fon' ob dat wine, an' sometimes he would drink till he
+got quite boozy. Ole Cousins liked him bery well, till he foun' out he
+wanted his darter, an' den he didn't want him fer rags nor patches. But
+Miss Nancy war mighty headstrong, an' allers liked to hab her own way;
+an' dis time she got it. But didn't she step her foot inter it? Ole
+Johnson war mighty han'some, but when dat war said all war said. She
+run'd off an' got married, but wen she got down she war too spunkey to
+axe her pa for anything. Wen you war wid her, yer know she only took big
+bugs. But wen de war com'd 'roun' it tore her all ter pieces, an' now
+she's as pore as Job's turkey. I feel's right sorry fer her. Well,
+Robby, things is turned 'roun' mighty quare. Ole Mistus war up den, an'
+I war down; now, she's down, an' I'se up. But I pities her, 'cause she
+warn't so bad arter all. De wuss thing she eber did war ta sell your
+mudder, an' she wouldn't hab done dat but she snatched de whip out ob
+her han' an gib her a lickin'. Now I belieb in my heart she war 'fraid
+ob your mudder arter dat. But we women had ter keep 'em from whippin'
+us, er dey'd all de time been libin' on our bones. She had no man ter
+whip us 'cept dat ole drunken husband ob hern, an' he war allers too
+drunk ter whip hisself. He jis' wandered off, an' I reckon he died in
+somebody's pore-house. He warn't no 'count nohow you fix it. Weneber I
+goes to town I carries her some garden sass, er a little milk an'
+butter. An' she's mighty glad ter git it. I ain't got nothin' agin her.
+She neber struck me a lick in her life, an' I belieb in praising de
+bridge dat carries me ober. Dem Yankees set me free, an' I thinks a
+powerful heap ob dem. But it does rile me ter see dese mean white men
+comin' down yere an' settin' up dere grog-shops, tryin' to fedder dere
+nests sellin' licker to pore culled people. Deys de bery kine ob men dat
+used ter keep dorgs to ketch de runaways. I'd be chokin' fer a drink
+'fore I'd eber spen' a cent wid dem, a spreadin' dere traps to git de
+black folks' money. You jis' go down town 'fore sun up to-morrer
+mornin' an' you see ef dey don't hab dem bars open to sell dere drams to
+dem hard workin' culled people 'fore dey goes ter work. I thinks some
+niggers is mighty big fools."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Linda, don't run down your race. Leave that for the white
+people."
+
+"I ain't runnin' down my people. But a fool's a fool, wether he's white
+or black. An' I think de nigger who will spen' his hard-earned money in
+dese yere new grog-shops is de biggest kine ob a fool, an' I sticks ter
+dat. You know we didn't hab all dese low places in slave times. An' what
+is dey fer, but to get the people's money. An' its a shame how dey do
+sling de licker 'bout 'lection times."
+
+"But don't the temperance people want the colored people to vote the
+temperance ticket?"
+
+"Yes, but some ob de culled people gits mighty skittish ef dey tries to
+git em to vote dare ticket 'lection time, an' keeps dem at a proper
+distance wen de 'lection's ober. Some ob dem say dere's a trick behine
+it, an' don't want to tech it. Dese white folks could do a heap wid de
+culled folks ef dey'd only treat em right."
+
+"When our people say there is a trick behind it," said Robert, "I only
+wish they could see the trick before it--the trick of worse than wasting
+their money, and of keeping themselves and families poorer and more
+ignorant than there is any need for them to be."
+
+"Well, Bobby, I beliebs we might be a people ef it warn't for dat
+mizzable drink. An' Robby, I jis' tells yer what I wants; I wants some
+libe man to come down yere an' splain things ter dese people. I don't
+mean a politic man, but a man who'll larn dese people how to bring up
+dere chillen, to keep our gals straight, an' our boys from runnin' in de
+saloons an' gamblin' dens."
+
+"Don't your preachers do that?" asked Robert.
+
+"Well, some ob dem does, an' some ob dem doesn't. An' wen dey preaches,
+I want dem to practice wat dey preach. Some ob dem says dey's called,
+but I jis' thinks laziness called some ob dem. An' I thinks since
+freedom come deres some mighty pore sticks set up for preachers. Now
+dere's John Anderson, Tom's brudder; you 'member Tom."
+
+"Yes; as brave a fellow and as honest as ever stepped in shoe leather."
+
+"Well, his brudder war mighty diffrent. He war down in de lower kentry
+wen de war war ober. He war mighty smart, an' had a good head-piece, an'
+a orful glib tongue. He set up store an' sole whisky, an' made a lot ob
+money. Den he wanted ter go to de legislatur. Now what should he do but
+make out he'd got 'ligion, an' war called to preach. He had no more
+'ligion dan my ole dorg. But he had money an' built a meetin' house,
+whar he could hole meeting, an' hab funerals; an' you know cullud folks
+is mighty great on funerals. Well dat jis' tuck wid de people, an' he
+got 'lected to de legislatur. Den he got a fine house, an' his ole wife
+warn't good 'nuff for him. Den dere war a young school-teacher, an' he
+begun cuttin' his eyes at her. But she war as deep in de mud as he war
+in de mire, an' he jis' gib up his ole wife and married her, a fusty
+thing. He war a mean ole hypocrit, an' I wouldn't sen' fer him to bury
+my cat. Robby, I'se down on dese kine ob preachers like a thousand
+bricks."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda, all the preachers are not like him."
+
+"No; I knows dat; not by a jug full. We's got some mighty good men down
+yere, an' we's glad when dey comes, an' orful sorry when dey goes 'way.
+De las preacher we had war a mighty good man. He didn't like too much
+hollerin'."
+
+"Perhaps," said Robert, "he thought it were best for only one to speak
+at a time."
+
+"I specs so. His wife war de nicest and sweetest lady dat eber I did
+see. None ob yer airish, stuck up folks, like a tarrapin carryin'
+eberything on its back. She used ter hab meetins fer de mudders, an'
+larn us how to raise our chillen, an' talk so putty to de chillen. I
+sartinly did lub dat woman."
+
+"Where is she now?" asked Robert.
+
+"De Conference moved dem 'bout thirty miles from yere. Deys gwine to hab
+a big meetin' ober dere next Sunday. Don't you 'member dem meetins we
+used to hab in de woods? We don't hab to hide like we did den. But it
+don't seem as ef de people had de same good 'ligion we had den. 'Pears
+like folks is took up wid makin' money an' politics."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda, don't you wish those good old days would come back?"
+
+"No, chile; neber! neber! Wat fer you take me? I'd ruther lib in a
+corn-crib. Freedom needn't keep me outer heben; an' ef I'se sich a fool
+as ter lose my 'ligion cause I'se free, I oughtn' ter git dere."
+
+"But, Aunt Linda, if old Miss were able to take care of you, wouldn't
+you just as leave be back again?"
+
+There was a faint quiver of indignation in Aunt Linda's voice, as she
+replied:--
+
+"Don't yer want yer freedom? Well I wants ter pat my free foot.
+Halleluyah! But, Robby, I wants yer ter go ter dat big meetin' de wuss
+kine."
+
+"How will I get there?" asked Robert.
+
+"Oh, dat's all right. My ole man's got two ob de nicest mules you eber
+set yer eyes on. It'll jis' do yer good ter look at dem. I 'spect you'll
+see some ob yer ole frens dere. Dere's a nice settlemen' of cullud folks
+ober dere, an' I wants yer to come an' bring dat young lady. I wants dem
+folks to see wat nice folks I kin bring to de meetin'. I hope's yer
+didn't lose all your 'ligion in de army."
+
+"Oh, I hope not," replied Robert.
+
+"Oh, chile, yer mus' be shore 'bout dat. I don't want yer to ride hope's
+hoss down to torment. Now be shore an' come to-morrer an' bring dat
+young lady, an' take supper wid me. I'se all on nettles to see dat
+chile."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+STRIKING CONTRASTS.
+
+The next day, Robert, accompanied by Iola, went to the settlement to
+take supper with Aunt Linda, and a very luscious affair it was. Her
+fingers had not lost their skill since she had tasted the sweets of
+freedom. Her biscuits were just as light and flaky as ever. Her jelly
+was as bright as amber, and her preserves were perfectly delicious.
+After she had set the table she stood looking in silent admiration,
+chuckling to herself: "Ole Mistus can't set sich a table as dat. She
+ought'er be yere to see it. Specs 'twould make her mouf water. Well, I
+mus' let by-gones be by-gones. But dis yere freedom's mighty good."
+
+Aunt Linda had invited Uncle Daniel, and, wishing to give him a pleasant
+surprise, she had refrained from telling him that Robert Johnson was the
+one she wished him to meet.
+
+"Do you know dis gemmen?" said Aunt Linda to Uncle Daniel, when the
+latter arrived.
+
+"Well, I can't say's I do. My eyes is gittin dim, an I disremembers
+him."
+
+"Now jis' you look right good at him. Don't yer 'member him?"
+
+Uncle Daniel looked puzzled and, slowly scanning Robert's features,
+said: "He do look like somebody I used ter know, but I can't make him
+out ter save my life. I don't know whar to place him. Who is de gemmen,
+ennyhow?"
+
+"Why, Uncle Dan'el," replied Aunt Linda, "dis is Robby; Miss Nancy's
+bad, mischeebous Robby, dat war allers playin' tricks on me."
+
+"Well, shore's I'se born, ef dis ain't our ole Bobby!" exclaimed Uncle
+Daniel, delightedly. "Why, chile, whar did yer come from? Thought you
+war dead an' buried long 'go."
+
+"Why, Uncle Daniel, did you send anybody to kill me?" asked Robert,
+laughingly.
+
+"Oh, no'n 'deed, chile! but I yeard dat you war killed in de battle, an'
+I never 'spected ter see you agin."
+
+"Well, here I am," replied Robert, "large as life, and just as natural.
+And this young lady, Uncle Daniel, I believe is my niece." As he spoke
+he turned to Iola. "Do you remember my mother?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Uncle Daniel, looking intently at Iola as she stepped
+forward and cordially gave him her hand.
+
+"Well, I firmly believe," continued Robert, "that this is the daughter
+of the little girl whom Miss Nancy sold away with my mother."
+
+"Well, I'se rale glad ter see her. She puts me mighty much in mine ob
+dem days wen we war all young togedder; wen Miss Nancy sed, 'Harriet war
+too high fer her.' It jis' seems like yisterday wen I yeard Miss Nancy
+say, 'No house could flourish whar dere war two mistresses.' Well, Mr.
+Robert--"
+
+"Oh, no, no, Uncle Daniel," interrupted Robert, "don't say that! Call me
+Robby or Bob, just as you used to."
+
+"Well, Bobby, I'se glad klar from de bottom of my heart ter see yer."
+
+"Even if you wouldn't go with us when we left?"
+
+"Oh, Bobby, dem war mighty tryin' times. You boys didn't know it, but
+Marster Robert hab giben me a bag ob money ter take keer ob, an' I
+promised him I'd do it an' I had ter be ez good ez my word."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Daniel, why didn't you tell us boys all about it? We could
+have helped you take care of it."
+
+"Now, wouldn't dat hab bin smart ter let on ter you chaps, an' hab you
+huntin' fer it from Dan ter Barsheba? I specs some ob you would bin a
+rootin' fer it yit!"
+
+"Well, Uncle Daniel, we were young then; I can't tell what we would have
+done if we had found it. But we are older now."
+
+"Yes, yer older, but I wouldn't put it pas' yer eben now, ef yer foun'
+out whar it war."
+
+"Yes," said Iola, laughing, "they say 'caution is the parent of
+safety.'"
+
+"Money's a mighty tempting thing," said Robert, smiling.
+
+"But, Robby, dere's nothin' like a klar conscience; a klar conscience,
+Robby!"
+
+Just then Aunt Linda, who had been completing the preparations for her
+supper, entered the room with her husband, and said, "Salters, let me
+interdoos you ter my fren', Mr. Robert Johnson, an' his niece, Miss
+Leroy."
+
+"Why, is it possible," exclaimed Robert, rising, and shaking hands,
+"that you are Aunt Linda's husband?"
+
+"Dat's what de parson sed," replied Salters.
+
+"I thought," pursued Robert, "that your name was John Andrews. It was
+such when you were in my company."
+
+"All de use I'se got fer dat name is ter git my money wid it; an' wen
+dat's done, all's done. Got 'nuff ob my ole Marster in slave times,
+widout wearin' his name in freedom. Wen I got done wid him, I got done
+wid his name. Wen I 'listed, I war John Andrews; and wen I gits my
+pension, I'se John Andrews; but now Salters is my name, an' I likes it
+better."
+
+"But how came you to be Aunt Linda's husband? Did you get married since
+the war?"
+
+"Lindy an' me war married long 'fore de war. But my ole Marster sole me
+away from her an' our little gal, an' den sole her chile ter somebody
+else. Arter freedom, I hunted up our little gal, an' foun' her. She war
+a big woman den. Den I com'd right back ter dis place an' foun' Lindy.
+She hedn't married agin, nuther hed I; so we jis' let de parson marry us
+out er de book; an' we war mighty glad ter git togedder agin, an' feel
+hitched togedder fer life."
+
+"Well, Uncle Daniel," said Robert, turning the conversation toward him,
+"you and Uncle Ben wouldn't go with us, but you came out all right at
+last."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Aunt Linda, "Ben got inter a stream of luck. Arter
+freedom com'd, de people had a heap of fath in Ben; an' wen dey wanted
+some one to go ter Congress dey jist voted for Ben ter go. An' he went,
+too. An' wen Salters went to Washin'ton to git his pension, who should
+he see dere wid dem big men but our Ben, lookin' jist as big as any ob
+dem."
+
+"An' it did my ole eyes good jist ter see it," broke in Salters; "if I
+couldn't go dere myself, I war mighty glad to see some one ob my people
+dat could. I felt like de boy who, wen somebody said he war gwine to
+slap off his face, said, 'Yer kin slap off my face, but I'se got a big
+brudder, an' you can't slap off his face.' I went to see him 'fore I lef,
+and he war jist de same as he war wen we war boys togedder. He hadn't
+got de big head a bit."
+
+"I reckon Mirandy war mighty sorry she didn't stay wid him. I know I
+should be," said Aunt Linda.
+
+"Uncle Daniel," asked Robert, "are you still preaching?"
+
+"Yes, chile, I'se still firing off de Gospel gun."
+
+"I hear some of the Northern folks are down here teaching theology, that
+is, teaching young men how to preach. Why don't you study theology?"
+
+"Look a yere, boy, I'se been a preachin' dese thirty years, an' you come
+yere a tellin' me 'bout studying yore ologies. I larn'd my 'ology at de
+foot ob de cross. You bin dar?"
+
+"Dear Uncle Daniel," said Iola, "the moral aspect of the nation would be
+changed if it would learn at the same cross to subordinate the spirit of
+caste to the spirit of Christ."
+
+"Does yer 'member Miss Nancy's Harriet," asked Aunt Linda, "dat she sole
+away kase she wouldn't let her whip her? Well, we think dis is Harriet's
+gran'chile. She war sole away from her mar, an' now she's a lookin' fer
+her."
+
+"Well, I hopes she may fine her," replied Salters. "I war sole 'way from
+my mammy wen I war eighteen mont's ole, an' I wouldn't know her now from
+a bunch ob turnips."
+
+"I," said Iola, "am on my way South seeking for my mother, and I shall
+not give up until I find her."
+
+"Come," said Aunt Linda, "we mustn't stan' yer talkin', or de grub'll
+git cole. Come, frens, sit down, an' eat some ob my pore supper."
+
+Aunt Linda sat at the table in such a flutter of excitement that she
+could hardly eat, but she gazed with intense satisfaction on her guests.
+Robert sat on her right hand, contrasting Aunt Linda's pleasant
+situation with the old days in Mrs. Johnson's kitchen, where he had
+played his pranks upon her, and told her the news of the war.
+
+Over Iola there stole a spirit of restfulness. There was something so
+motherly in Aunt Linda's manner that it seemed to recall the bright,
+sunshiny days when she used to nestle in Mam Liza's arms, in her own
+happy home. The conversation was full of army reminiscences and
+recollections of the days of slavery. Uncle Daniel was much interested,
+and, as they rose from the table, exclaimed:--
+
+"Robby, seein' yer an' hearin' yer talk, almos' puts new springs inter
+me. I feel 'mos' like I war gittin' younger."
+
+After the supper, Salters and his guests returned to the front room,
+which Aunt Linda regarded with so much pride, and on which she bestowed
+so much care.
+
+"Well, Captin," said Salters, "I neber 'spected ter see you agin. Do you
+know de las' time I seed yer? Well, you war on a stretcher, an' four ob
+us war carryin' you ter de hospital. War you much hurt?
+
+"No," replied Robert, "it was only a flesh wound; and this young lady
+nursed me so carefully that I soon got over it."
+
+"Is dat de way you foun' her?"
+
+"Yes, Andrews,"--
+
+"Salters, ef you please," interrupted Salters. I'se only Andrews wen I
+gits my money."
+
+"Well, Salters," continued Robert, "our freedom was a costly thing. Did
+you know that Captain Sybil was killed in one of the last battles of the
+war? These young chaps, who are taking it so easy, don't know the
+hardships through which we older ones passed. But all the battles are
+not fought, nor all the victories won. The colored man has escaped from
+one slavery, and I don't want him to fall into another. I want the young
+folks to keep their brains clear, and their right arms strong, to fight
+the battles of life manfully, and take their places alongside of every
+other people in this country. And I cannot see what is to hinder them if
+they get a chance."
+
+"I don't nuther," said Salters. "I don't see dat dey drinks any more dan
+anybody else, nor dat dere is any meanness or debilment dat a black man
+kin do dat a white man can't keep step wid him."
+
+"Yes," assented Robert, "but while a white man is stealing a thousand
+dollars, a black man is getting into trouble taking a few chickens."
+
+"All that may be true," said Iola, "but there are some things a white
+man can do that we cannot afford to do."
+
+"I beliebs eberybody, Norf and Souf, is lookin' at us; an' some ob dem
+ain't got no good blood fer us, nohow you fix it," said Salters.
+
+"I specs cullud folks mus' hab done somethin'," interposed Aunt Linda.
+
+"O, nonsense," said Robert. "I don't think they are any worse than the
+white people. I don't believe, if we had the power, we would do any
+more lynching, burning, and murdering than they do."
+
+"Dat's so," said Aunt Linda, "it's ralely orful how our folks hab been
+murdered sence de war. But I don't think dese young folks is goin' ter
+take things as we's allers done."
+
+"We war cowed down from the beginnin'," said Uncle Daniel, "but dese
+young folks ain't comin' up dat way."
+
+"No," said Salters, "fer one night arter some ob our pore people had
+been killed, an' some ob our women had run'd away 'bout seventeen miles,
+my gran'son, looking me squar in de face, said: 'Ain't you got five
+fingers? Can't you pull a trigger as well as a white man?' I tell yer,
+Cap, dat jis' got to me, an' I made up my mine dat my boy should neber
+call me a coward."
+
+"It is not to be expected," said Robert, "that these young people are
+going to put up with things as we did, when we weren't permitted to hold
+a meeting by ourselves, or to own a club or learn to read."
+
+"I tried," said Salters, "to git a little out'er de book wen I war in de
+army. On Sundays I sometimes takes a book an' tries to make out de
+words, but my eyes is gittin' dim an' de letters all run togedder, an' I
+gits sleepy, an' ef yer wants to put me to sleep jis' put a book in my
+han'. But wen it comes to gittin' out a stan' ob cotton, an' plantin'
+corn, I'se dere all de time. But dat gran'son ob mine is smart as a
+steel trap. I specs he'll be a preacher."
+
+Salters looked admiringly at his grandson, who sat grinning in the
+corner, munching a pear he had brought from the table.
+
+"Yes," said Aunt Linda, "his fadder war killed by the Secesh, one night,
+comin' home from a politic meetin', an' his pore mudder died a few
+weeks arter, an' we mean to make a man ob him."
+
+"He's got to larn to work fust," said Salters, "an' den ef he's right
+smart I'se gwine ter sen' him ter college. An' ef he can't get a libin'
+one way, he kin de oder."
+
+"Yes," said Iola, "I hope he will turn out an excellent young man, for
+the greatest need of the race is noble, earnest men, and true women."
+
+"Job," said Salters, turning to his grandson, "tell Jake ter hitch up de
+mules, an' you stay dere an' help him. We's all gwine ter de big
+meetin'. Yore grandma hab set her heart on goin', an' it'll be de same
+as a spell ob sickness ef she don't hab a chance to show her bes' bib
+an' tucker. That ole gal's as proud as a peacock."
+
+"Now, John Salters," exclaimed Aunt Linda, "ain't you 'shamed ob
+yourself? Allers tryin' to poke fun at yer pore wife. Never mine; wait
+till I'se gone, an' you'll miss me."
+
+"Ef I war single," said Salters, "I could git a putty young gal, but it
+wouldn't be so easy wid you."
+
+"Why not?" said Iola, smiling.
+
+"'Cause young men don't want ole hens, an' ole men want young pullets,"
+was Salter's reply.
+
+"Robby, honey," said Aunt Linda, "when you gits a wife, don't treat her
+like dat man treats me."
+
+"Oh, his head's level," answered Robert; "at least it was in the army."
+
+"Dat's jis' de way; you see dat, Miss Iola? One man takin' up for de
+oder. But I'll be eben wid you bof. I must go now an' git ready."
+
+Iola laughed. The homely enjoyment of that evening was very welcome to
+her after the trying scenes through which she had passed. Further
+conversation was interrupted by the appearance of the wagon, drawn by
+two fine mules. John Salters stopped joking his wife to admire his
+mules.
+
+"Jis' look at dem," he said. "Ain't dey beauties? I bought 'em out ob my
+bounty-money. Arter de war war ober I had a little money, an' I war
+gwine ter rent a plantation on sheers an' git out a good stan' ob
+cotton. Cotton war bringin' orful high prices den, but Lindy said to me,
+'Now, John, you'se got a lot ob money, an' you'd better salt it down.
+I'd ruther lib on a little piece ob lan' ob my own dan a big piece ob
+somebody else's. Well, I says to Lindy, I dun know nuthin' 'bout buyin'
+lan', an' I'se 'fraid arter I'se done buyed it an' put all de marrer ob
+dese bones in it, dat somebody's far-off cousin will come an' say de
+title ain't good, an' I'll lose it all."
+
+"You're right thar, John," said Uncle Daniel. "White man's so unsartain,
+black man's nebber safe."
+
+"But somehow," continued Salters, "Lindy warn't satisfied wid rentin',
+so I buyed a piece ob lan', an' I'se glad now I'se got it. Lindy's got a
+lot ob gumption; knows most as much as a man. She ain't got dat long
+head fer nuffin. She's got lots ob sense, but I don't like to tell her
+so."
+
+"Why not?" asked Iola. "Do you think it would make her feel too happy?"
+
+"Well, it don't do ter tell you women how much we thinks ob you. It sets
+you up too much. Ole Gundover's overseer war my marster, an' he used ter
+lib in dis bery house. I'se fixed it up sence I'se got it. Now I'se
+better off dan he is, 'cause he tuck to drink, an' all his frens is
+gone, an' he's in de pore-house."
+
+Just then Linda came to the door with her baskets.
+
+"Now, Lindy, ain't you ready yet? Do hurry up."
+
+"Yes, I'se ready, but things wouldn't go right ef you didn't hurry me."
+
+"Well, put your chicken fixins an' cake right in yere. Captin, you'll
+ride wid me, an' de young lady an' my ole woman'll take de back seat.
+Uncle Dan'el, dere's room for you ef you'll go."
+
+"No, I thank you. It's time fer ole folks to go to bed. Good night! An',
+Bobby, I hopes to see you agin'."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+A REVELATION.
+
+It was a lovely evening for the journey. The air was soft and balmy. The
+fields and hedges were redolent with flowers. Not a single cloud
+obscured the brightness of the moon or the splendor of the stars. The
+ancient trees were festooned with moss, which hung like graceful
+draperies. Ever and anon a startled hare glided over the path, and
+whip-poor-wills and crickets broke the restful silence of the night.
+Robert rode quietly along, quaffing the beauty of the scene and thinking
+of his boyish days, when he gathered nuts and wild plums in those woods;
+he also indulged pleasant reminiscences of later years, when, with Uncle
+Daniel and Tom Anderson, he attended the secret prayer-meetings. Iola
+rode along, conversing with Aunt Linda, amused and interested at the
+quaintness of her speech and the shrewdness of her intellect. To her the
+ride was delightful.
+
+"Does yer know dis place, Robby," asked Aunt Linda, as they passed an
+old resort.
+
+"I should think I did," replied Robert. "It is the place where we held
+our last prayer-meeting."
+
+"An' dere's dat ole broken pot we used, ter tell 'bout de war. But
+warn't ole Miss hoppin' wen she foun' out you war goin' to de war! I
+thought she'd go almos' wile. Now, own up, Robby, didn't you feel kine
+ob mean to go off widout eben biddin' her good bye? An' I ralely think
+ole Miss war fon' ob yer. Now, own up, honey, didn't yer feel a little
+down in de mouf wen yer lef' her."
+
+"Not much," responded Robert. "I only thought she was getting paid back
+for selling my mother."
+
+"Dat's so, Robby! yore mudder war a likely gal, wid long black hair, an'
+kine ob ginger-bread color. An' you neber hearn tell ob her sence dey
+sole her to Georgia?"
+
+"Never," replied Robert, "but I would give everything I have on earth to
+see her once more. I _do_ hope, if she is living, that I may meet her
+before I die."
+
+"You's right, boy, cause she lub'd you as she lub'd her own life. Many a
+time hes she set in my ole cabin an' cried 'bout yer wen you war fas'
+asleep. It's all ober now, but I'se gwine to hole up fer dem Yankees dat
+gib me my freedom, an' sent dem nice ladies from de Norf to gib us some
+sense. Some ob dese folks calls em nigger teachers, an' won't hab nuffin
+to do wid 'em, but I jis' thinks dey's splendid. But dere's some
+triflin' niggers down yere who'll sell der votes for almost nuffin. Does
+you 'member Jake Williams an' Gundover's Tom? Well dem two niggers is de
+las' ob pea-time. Dey's mighty small pertaters an' few in a hill."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Linda," said Robert, "don't call them niggers. They are our
+own people."
+
+"Dey ain't my kine ob people. I jis' calls em niggers, an' niggers I
+means; an' de bigges' kine ob niggers. An' if my John war sich a nigger
+I'd whip him an' leave him."
+
+"An' what would I be a doin'," queried John, suddenly rousing up at the
+mention of his name.
+
+"Standing still and taking it, I suppose," said Iola, who had been
+quietly listening to and enjoying the conversation.
+
+"Yes, an' I'd ketch myself stan'in' still an' takin' it," was John's
+plucky response.
+
+"Well, you oughter, ef you's mean enough to wote dat ticket ter put me
+back inter slavery," was Aunt Linda's parting shot. "Robby," she
+continued, "you 'member Miss Nancy's Jinnie?"
+
+"Of course I do," said Robert.
+
+"She married Mr. Gundover's Dick. Well, dere warn't much git up an' go
+'bout him. So, wen 'lection time com'd, de man he war workin' fer tole
+him ef he woted de radical ticket he'd turn him off. Well, Jinnie war so
+'fraid he'd do it, dat she jis' follered him fer days."
+
+"Poor fellow!" exclaimed Robert. "How did he come out?"
+
+"He certainly was between two fires," interposed Iola.
+
+"Oh, Jinnie gained de day. She jis' got her back up, and said, 'Now ef
+yer wote dat ticket ter put me back inter slavery, you take yore rags
+an' go.' An' Dick jis' woted de radical ticket. Jake Williams went on de
+Secesh side, woted whar he thought he'd git his taters, but he got
+fooled es slick es greese."
+
+"How was that?" asked Robert.
+
+"Some ob dem folks, dat I 'spects buyed his wote, sent him some flour
+an' sugar. So one night his wife hab company ter tea. Dey made a big
+spread, an' put a lot ob sugar on de table fer supper, an' Tom jis' went
+fer dat sugar. He put a lot in his tea. But somehow it didn't tase
+right, an' wen dey come ter fine out what war de matter, dey hab sent
+him a barrel ob san' wid some sugar on top, an' wen de sugar war all
+gone de san' war dare. Wen I yeard it, I jis' split my sides a larfin.
+It war too good to keep; an' wen it got roun', Jake war as mad as a
+March hare. But it sarved him right."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda, you musn't be too hard on Uncle Jake; you know he's
+getting old."
+
+"Well he ain't too ole ter do right. He ain't no older dan Uncle Dan'el.
+An' I yered dey offered him $500 ef he'd go on dere side. An' Uncle
+Dan'el wouldn't tech it. An' dere's Uncle Job's wife; why didn't she go
+dat way? She war down on Job's meanness."
+
+"What did she do?"
+
+"Wen 'lection time 'rived, he com'd home bringing some flour an' meat;
+an' he says ter Aunt Polly, 'Ole woman, I got dis fer de wote.' She jis'
+picked up dat meat an' flour an' sent it sailin' outer doors, an' den
+com'd back an' gib him a good tongue-lashin'. 'Oder people,' she said,
+'a wotin' ter lib good, an' you a sellin' yore wote! Ain't you got 'nuff
+ob ole Marster, an' ole Marster bin cuttin' you up? It shan't stay
+yere.' An' so she wouldn't let de things stay in de house."
+
+"What did Uncle Job do?"
+
+"He jis' stood dere an' cried."
+
+"And didn't you feel sorry for him?" asked Iola.
+
+"Not a bit! he hedn't no business ter be so shabby."
+
+"But, Aunt Linda," pursued Iola, "if it were shabby for an ignorant
+colored man to sell his vote, wasn't it shabbier for an intelligent
+white man to buy it?"
+
+"You see," added Robert, "all the shabbiness is not on our side."
+
+"I knows dat," said Aunt Linda, "but I can't help it. I wants my people
+to wote right, an' to think somethin' ob demselves."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda, they say in every flock of sheep there will be one
+that's scabby," observed Iola.
+
+"Dat's so! But I ain't got no use fer scabby sheep."
+
+"Lindy," cried John, "we's most dar! Don't you yere dat singin'? Dey's
+begun a'ready."
+
+"Neber mine," said Aunt Linda, "sometimes de las' ob de wine is de
+bes'."
+
+Thus discoursing they had beguiled the long hours of the night and made
+their long journey appear short.
+
+Very soon they reached the church, a neat, commodious, frame building,
+with a blue ceiling, white walls within and without, and large windows
+with mahogany-colored facings. It was a sight full of pathetic interest
+to see that group which gathered from miles around. They had come to
+break bread with each other, relate their experiences, and tell of their
+hopes of heaven. In that meeting were remnants of broken
+families--mothers who had been separated from their children before the
+war, husbands who had not met their wives for years. After the bread had
+been distributed and the handshaking was nearly over, Robert raised the
+hymn which Iola had sung for him when he was recovering from his wounds,
+and Iola, with her clear, sweet tones, caught up the words and joined
+him in the strain. When the hymn was finished a dear old mother rose
+from her seat. Her voice was quite strong. With still a lingering light
+and fire in her eye, she said:--
+
+"I rise, bredren an' sisters, to say I'm on my solemn march to glory."
+
+"Amen!" "Glory!" came from a number of voices.
+
+"I'se had my trials an' temptations, my ups an' downs; but I feels I'll
+soon be in one ob de many mansions. If it hadn't been for dat hope I
+'spects I would have broken down long ago. I'se bin through de deep
+waters, but dey didn't overflow me; I'se bin in de fire, but de smell ob
+it isn't on my garments. Bredren an' sisters, it war a drefful time when
+I war tored away from my pore little chillen."
+
+"Dat's so!" exclaimed a chorus of voices. Some of her hearers moaned,
+others rocked to and fro, as thoughts of similar scenes in their own
+lives arose before them.
+
+"When my little girl," continued the speaker, "took hole ob my dress an'
+begged me ter let her go wid me, an' I couldn't do it, it mos' broke my
+heart. I had a little boy, an' wen my mistus sole me she kep' him. She
+carried on a boardin' house. Many's the time I hab stole out at night
+an' seen dat chile an' sleep'd wid him in my arms tell mos' day. Bimeby
+de people I libed wid got hard up fer money, an' dey sole me one way an'
+my pore little gal de oder; an' I neber laid my eyes on my pore chillen
+sence den. But, honeys, let de wind blow high or low, I 'spects to
+outwedder de storm an' anchor by'm bye in bright glory. But I'se bin a
+prayin' fer one thing, an' I beliebs I'll git it; an' dat is dat I may
+see my chillen 'fore I die. Pray fer me dat I may hole out an' hole on,
+an' neber make a shipwrack ob faith, an' at las' fine my way from earth
+to glory."
+
+Having finished her speech, she sat down and wiped away the tears that
+flowed all the more copiously as she remembered her lost children. When
+she rose to speak her voice and manner instantly arrested Robert's
+attention. He found his mind reverting to the scenes of his childhood.
+As she proceeded his attention became riveted on her. Unbidden tears
+filled his eyes and great sobs shook his frame. He trembled in every
+limb. Could it be possible that after years of patient search through
+churches, papers, and inquiring friends, he had accidentally stumbled on
+his mother--the mother who, long years ago, had pillowed his head upon
+her bosom and left her parting kiss upon his lips? How should he reveal
+himself to her? Might not sudden joy do what years of sorrow had failed
+to accomplish? Controlling his feelings as best he could, he rose to
+tell his experience. He referred to the days when they used to hold
+their meetings in the lonely woods and gloomy swamps. How they had
+prayed for freedom and plotted to desert to the Union army; and
+continuing, he said: "Since then, brethren and sisters, I have had my
+crosses and trials, but I try to look at the mercies. Just think what it
+was then and what it is now! How many of us, since freedom has come,
+have been looking up our scattered relatives. I have just been over to
+visit my old mistress, Nancy Johnson, and to see if I could get some
+clue to my long-lost mother, who was sold from me nearly thirty years
+ago."
+
+Again there was a chorus of moans.
+
+On resuming, Robert's voice was still fuller of pathos.
+
+"When," he said, "I heard that dear old mother tell her experience it
+seemed as if some one had risen from the dead. She made me think of my
+own dear mother, who used to steal out at night to see me, fold me in
+her arms, and then steal back again to her work. After she was sold
+away I never saw her face again by daylight. I have been looking for her
+ever since the war, and I think at last I have got on the right track.
+If Mrs. Johnson, who kept the boarding-house in C----, is the one who
+sold that dear old mother from her son, then she is the one I am looking
+for, and I am the son she has been praying for."
+
+The dear old mother raised her eyes. They were clear and tearless. An
+expression of wonder, hope, and love flitted over her face. It seemed as
+if her youth were suddenly renewed and, bounding from her seat, she
+rushed to the speaker in a paroxysm of joy. "Oh, Robby! Robby! is dis
+you? Is dat my pore, dear boy I'se been prayin' 'bout all dese years?
+Oh, glory! glory!" And overflowing with joyous excitement she threw her
+arms around him, looking the very impersonation of rapturous content. It
+was a happy time. Mothers whose children had been torn from them in the
+days of slavery knew how to rejoice in her joy. The young people caught
+the infection of the general happiness and rejoiced with them that
+rejoiced. There were songs of rejoicing and shouts of praise. The
+undertone of sadness which had so often mingled with their songs gave
+place to strains of exultation; and tears of tender sympathy flowed from
+eyes which had often been blurred by anguish. The child of many prayers
+and tears was restored to his mother.
+
+Iola stood by the mother's side, smiling, and weeping tears of joy. When
+Robert's mother observed Iola, she said to Robert, "Is dis yore wife?"
+
+"Oh, no," replied Robert, "but I believe she is your grandchild, the
+daughter of the little girl who was sold away from you so long ago. She
+is on her way to the farther South in search of her mother."
+
+"Is she? Dear chile! I hope she'll fine her! She puts me in mine ob my
+pore little Marie. Well, I'se got one chile, an' I means to keep on
+prayin' tell I fine my daughter. I'm _so_ happy! I feel's like a new
+woman!"
+
+"My dear mother," said Robert, "now that I have found you, I mean to
+hold you fast just as long as you live. Ever since the war I have been
+trying to find out if you were living, but all efforts failed. At last,
+I thought I would come and hunt you myself and, now that I have found
+you, I am going to take you home to live with me, and to be as happy as
+the days are long. I am living in the North, and doing a good business
+there. I want you to see joy according to all the days wherein you have
+seen sorrow. I do hope this young lady will find _her_ ma and that, when
+found, she will prove to be your daughter!"
+
+"Yes, pore, dear chile! I specs her mudder's heart's mighty hungry fer
+her. I does hope she's my gran'chile."
+
+Tenderly and caressingly Iola bent over the happy mother, with her heart
+filled with mournful memories of her own mother.
+
+Aunt Linda was induced to stay until the next morning, and then gladly
+assisted Robert's mother in arranging for her journey northward. The
+friends who had given her a shelter in their hospitable home, learned to
+value her so much that it was with great reluctance they resigned her to
+the care of her son. Aunt Linda was full of bustling activity, and her
+spirits overflowed with good humor.
+
+"Now, Harriet," she said, as they rode along on their return journey,
+"you mus' jis' thank me fer finin' yore chile, 'cause I got him to come
+to dat big meetin' wid me."
+
+"Oh, Lindy," she cried, "I'se glad from de bottom ob my heart ter see
+you's all. I com'd out dere ter git a blessin', an' I'se got a double
+po'tion. De frens I war libin' wid war mighty good ter me. Dey lib'd wid
+me in de lower kentry, an' arter de war war ober I stopped wid 'em and
+helped take keer ob de chillen; an' when dey com'd up yere dey brought
+me wid 'em. I'se com'd a way I didn't know, but I'se mighty glad I'se
+com'd."
+
+"Does you know dis place?" asked Aunt Linda, as they approached the
+settlement.
+
+"No'n 'deed I don't. It's all new ter me."
+
+"Well, dis is whar I libs. Ain't you mighty tired? I feels a little
+stiffish. Dese bones is gittin' ole."
+
+"Dat's so! But I'se mighty glad I'se lib'd to see my boy 'fore I crossed
+ober de riber. An' now I feel like ole Simeon."
+
+"But, mother," said Robert, "if you are ready to go, I am not willing to
+let you. I want you to stay ever so long where I can see you."
+
+A bright smile overspread her face. Robert's words reassured and
+gladdened her heart. She was well satisfied to have a pleasant aftermath
+from life on this side of the river.
+
+After arriving home Linda's first thought was to prepare dinner for her
+guests. But, before she began her work of preparation, she went to the
+cupboard to get a cup of home-made wine.
+
+"Here," she said, filling three glasses, "is some wine I made myself
+from dat grape-vine out dere. Don't it look nice and clar? Jist taste
+it. It's fus'rate."
+
+"No, thank you," said Robert. "I'm a temperance man, and never take
+anything which has alcohol in it."
+
+"Oh, dis ain't got a bit ob alcohol in it. I made it myself."
+
+"But, Aunt Linda, you didn't make the law which ferments grape-juice and
+makes it alcohol."
+
+"But, Robby, ef alcohol's so bad, w'at made de Lord put it here?"
+
+"Aunt Lindy," said Iola, "I heard a lady say that there were two things
+the Lord didn't make. One is sin, and the other alcohol."
+
+"Why, Aunt Linda," said Robert, "there are numbers of things the Lord
+has made that I wouldn't touch with a pair of tongs."
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Rattlesnakes, scorpions, and moccasins."
+
+"Oh, sho!"
+
+"Aunt Linda," said Iola, "the Bible says that the wine at last will bite
+like a serpent and sting like an adder."
+
+"And, Aunt Linda," added Robert, "as I wouldn't wind a serpent around my
+throat, I don't want to put something inside of it which will bite like
+a serpent and sting as an adder."
+
+"I reckon Robby's right," said his mother, setting down her glass and
+leaving the wine unfinished. "You young folks knows a heap more dan we
+ole folks." "Well," declared Aunt Linda, "you all is temp'rence to de
+backbone. But what could I do wid my wine ef we didn't drink it?"
+
+"Let it turn to vinegar, and sign the temperance pledge," replied
+Robert.
+
+"I don't keer 'bout it myself, but I don't 'spect John would be willin'
+ter let it go, 'cause he likes it a heap."
+
+"Then you must give it up for his sake and Job's," said Robert. "They
+may learn to like it too well."
+
+"You know, Aunt Linda," said Iola, "people don't get to be drunkards all
+at once. And you wouldn't like to feel, if Job should learn to drink,
+that you helped form his appetite."
+
+"Dat' so! I beliebs I'll let dis turn to winegar, an' not make any
+more."
+
+"That's right, Aunt Linda. I hope you'll hold to it," said Robert,
+encouragingly.
+
+Very soon Aunt Linda had an excellent dinner prepared. After it was over
+Robert went with Iola to C----, where her friend, the bishop, was
+awaiting her return. She told him the wonderful story of Robert's
+finding his mother, and of her sweet, childlike faith.
+
+The bishop, a kind, fatherly man, said, "Miss Iola, I hope that such
+happiness is in store for you. My dear child, still continue to pray and
+trust. I am old-fashioned enough to believe in prayer. I knew an old
+lady living in Illinois, who was a slave. Her son got a chance to come
+North and beg money to buy his mother. The mother was badly treated, and
+made up her mind to run away. But before she started she thought she
+would kneel down to pray. And something, she said, reasoned within her,
+and whispered, 'Stand still and see what I am going to do for you.' So
+real was it to her that she unpacked her bundle and desisted from her
+flight. Strange as it may appear to you, her son returned, bringing
+with him money enough to purchase her freedom, and she was redeemed from
+bondage. Had she persisted in running away she might have been lost in
+the woods and have died, exhausted by starvation. But she believed, she
+trusted, and was delivered. Her son took her North, where she could find
+a resting place for the soles of her feet."
+
+That night Iola and the bishop left for the South.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+A HOME FOR MOTHER.
+
+After Iola had left the settlement, accompanied by Robert as far as the
+town, it was a pleasant satisfaction for the two old friends to settle
+themselves down, and talk of times past, departed friends, and
+long-forgotten scenes.
+
+"What," said Mrs. Johnson, as we shall call Robert's mother, "hab become
+ob Miss Nancy's husband? Is he still a libin'?"
+
+"Oh, he drunk hisself to death," responded Aunt Linda.
+
+"He used ter be mighty handsome."
+
+"Yes, but drink war his ruination."
+
+"An' how's Miss Nancy?"
+
+"Oh, she's com'd down migh'ly. She's pore as a church mouse. I thought
+'twould com'd home ter her wen she sole yer 'way from yore chillen.
+Dere's nuffin goes ober de debil's back dat don't come under his belly.
+Do yo 'member Miss Nancy's fardder?"
+
+"Ob course I does!"
+
+"Well," said Aunt Linda, "he war a nice ole gemmen. Wen he died, I said
+de las' gemmen's dead, an' dere's noboddy ter step in his shoes."
+
+"Pore Miss Nancy!" exclaimed Robert's mother. "I ain't nothin' agin her.
+But I wouldn't swap places wid her, 'cause I'se got my son; an' I
+beliebs he'll do a good part by me."
+
+"Mother," said Robert, as he entered the room, "I've brought an old
+friend to see you. Do you remember Uncle Daniel?"
+
+Uncle Daniel threw back his head, reached out his hand, and manifested
+his joy with "Well, Har'yet! is dis you? I neber 'spected to see you in
+dese lower grouns! How does yer do? an' whar hab you bin all dis time?"
+
+"O, I'se been tossin' roun' 'bout; but it's all com'd right at las'.
+I'se lib'd to see my boy 'fore I died."
+
+"My wife an' boys is in glory," said Uncle Daniel. "But I 'spects to see
+'em 'fore long. 'Cause I'se tryin' to dig deep, build sure, an' make my
+way from earth ter glory."
+
+"Dat's de right kine ob talk, Dan'el. We ole folks ain't got long ter
+stay yere."
+
+They chatted together until Job and Salters came home for supper. After
+they had eaten, Uncle Daniel said:--
+
+"We'll hab a word ob prayer."
+
+There, in that peaceful habitation, they knelt down, and mingled their
+prayers together, as they had done in by-gone days, when they had met by
+stealth in lonely swamps or silent forests.
+
+The next morning Robert and his mother started northward. They were well
+supplied with a bountiful luncheon by Aunt Linda, who had so thoroughly
+enjoyed their sojourn with her. On the next day he arrived in the city
+of P----, and took his mother to his boarding-house, until he could find
+a suitable home into which to install her. He soon came across one which
+just suited his taste, but when the agent discovered that Robert's
+mother was colored, he told him that the house had been previously
+engaged. In company with his mother he looked at several other houses in
+desirable neighborhoods, but they were constantly met with the answer,
+"The house is engaged," or, "We do not rent to colored people."
+
+At length Robert went alone, and, finding a desirable house, engaged it,
+and moved into it. In a short time it was discovered that he was
+colored, and, at the behest of the local sentiment of the place, the
+landlord used his utmost endeavors to oust him, simply because he
+belonged to an unfashionable and unpopular race. At last he came across
+a landlord who was broad enough to rent him a good house, and he found a
+quiet resting place among a set of well-to-do and well-disposed people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+FURTHER LIFTING OF THE VEIL.
+
+In one of those fearful conflicts by which the Mississippi was freed
+from Rebel intrusion and opened to commerce Harry was severely wounded,
+and forced to leave his place in the ranks for a bed in the hospital.
+
+One day, as he lay in his bed, thinking of his former home in
+Mississippi and wondering if the chances of war would ever restore him
+to his loved ones, he fell into a quiet slumber. When he awoke he found
+a lady bending over him, holding in her hands some fruit and flowers. As
+she tenderly bent over Harry's bed their eyes met, and with a thrill of
+gladness they recognized each other.
+
+"Oh, my son, my son!" cried Marie, trying to repress her emotion, as she
+took his wasted hand in hers, and kissed the pale cheeks that sickness
+and suffering had blanched. Harry was very weak, but her presence was a
+call to life. He returned the pressure of her hand, kissed it, and his
+eyes grew full of sudden light, as he murmured faintly, but joyfully:--
+
+"Mamma; oh, mamma! have I found you at last?"
+
+The effort was too much, and he immediately became unconscious.
+
+Anxious, yet hopeful, Marie sat by the bedside of her son till
+consciousness was restored. Caressingly she bent over his couch,
+murmuring in her happiness the tenderest, sweetest words of motherly
+love. In Harry's veins flowed new life and vigor, calming the
+restlessness of his nerves.
+
+As soon as possible Harry was carried to his mother's home; a home
+brought into the light of freedom by the victories of General Grant.
+Nursed by his mother's tender, loving care, he rapidly recovered, but,
+being too disabled to re-enter the army, he was honorably discharged.
+
+Lorraine had taken Marie to Vicksburg, and there allowed her to engage
+in confectionery and preserving for the wealthy ladies of the city. He
+had at first attempted to refugee with her in Texas, but, being foiled
+in the attempt, he was compelled to enlist in the Confederate Army, and
+met his fate by being killed just before the surrender of Vicksburg.
+
+"My dear son," Marie would say, as she bent fondly over him, "I am
+deeply sorry that you are wounded, but I am glad that the fortunes of
+war have brought us together. Poor Iola! I _do_ wonder what has become
+of her? Just as soon as this war is over I want you to search the
+country all over. Poor child! How my heart has ached for her!"
+
+Time passed on. Harry and his mother searched and inquired for Iola, but
+no tidings of her reached them.
+
+Having fully recovered his health, and seeing the great need of
+education for the colored people, Harry turned his attention toward
+them, and joined the new army of Northern teachers.
+
+He still continued his inquiries for his sister, not knowing whether or
+not she had succumbed to the cruel change in her life. He thought she
+might have passed into the white basis for the sake of bettering her
+fortunes. Hope deferred, which had sickened his mother's heart, had
+only roused him to renewed diligence.
+
+A school was offered him in Georgia, and thither he repaired, taking his
+mother with him. They were soon established in the city of A----. In
+hope of finding Iola he visited all the conferences of the Methodist
+Church, but for a long time his search was in vain.
+
+"Mamma," said Harry, one day during his vacation, "there is to be a
+Methodist Conference in this State in the city of S----, about one
+hundred and fifty miles from here. I intend to go and renew my search
+for Iola."
+
+"Poor child!" burst out Marie, as the tears gathered in her eyes, "I
+wonder if she is living."
+
+"I think so," said Harry, kissing the pale cheek of his mother; "I don't
+feel that Iola is dead. I believe we will find her before long."
+
+"It seems to me my heart would burst with joy to see my dear child just
+once more. I am glad that you are going. When will you leave?"
+
+"To-morrow morning."
+
+"Well, my son, go, and my prayers will go with you," was Marie's tender
+parting wish.
+
+Early next morning Harry started for the conference, and reached the
+church before the morning session was over. Near him sat two ladies, one
+fair, the other considerably darker. There was something in the fairer
+one that reminded him forcibly of his sister, but she was much older and
+graver than he imagined his sister to be. Instantly he dismissed the
+thought that had forced itself into his mind, and began to listen
+attentively to the proceedings of the conference.
+
+When the regular business of the morning session was over the bishop
+arose and said:--
+
+"I have an interesting duty to perform. I wish to introduce a young lady
+to the conference, who was the daughter of a Mississippi planter. She is
+now in search of her mother and brother, from whom she was sold a few
+months before the war. Her father married her mother in Ohio, where he
+had taken her to be educated. After his death they were robbed of their
+inheritance and enslaved by a distant relative named Lorraine. Miss Iola
+Leroy is the young lady's name. If any one can give the least
+information respecting the objects of her search it will be thankfully
+received."
+
+"I can," exclaimed a young man, rising in the midst of the audience, and
+pressing eagerly, almost impetuously, forward. "I am her brother, and I
+came here to look for her."
+
+Iola raised her eyes to his face, so flushed and bright with the glow of
+recognition, rushed to him, threw her arms around his neck, kissed him
+again and again, crying: "O, Harry!" Then she fainted from excitement.
+The women gathered around her with expressions of tender sympathy, and
+gave her all the care she needed. They called her the "dear child," for
+without any effort on her part she had slidden into their hearts and
+found a ready welcome in each sympathizing bosom.
+
+Harry at once telegraphed the glad tidings to his mother, who waited
+their coming with joyful anticipation. Long before the cars reached the
+city, Mrs. Leroy was at the depot, restlessly walking the platform or
+eagerly peering into the darkness to catch the first glimpse of the
+train which was bearing her treasures.
+
+At length the cars arrived, and, as Harry and Iola alighted, Marie
+rushed forward, clasped Iola in her arms and sobbed out her joy in
+broken words.
+
+Very happy was the little family that sat together around the
+supper-table for the first time for years. They partook of that supper
+with thankful hearts and with eyes overflowing with tears of joy. Very
+touching were the prayers the mother uttered, when she knelt with her
+children that night to return thanks for their happy reunion, and to
+seek protection through the slumbers of the night.
+
+The next morning, as they sat at the breakfast-table, Marie said:
+
+"My dear child, you are so changed I do not think I would have known you
+if I had met you in the street!"
+
+"And I," said Harry, "can hardly realize that you are our own Iola, whom
+I recognized as sister a half dozen years ago."
+
+"Am I so changed?" asked Iola, as a faint sigh escaped her lips.
+
+"Why, Iola," said Harry, "you used to be the most harum-scarum girl I
+ever knew, laughing, dancing, and singing from morning until night."
+
+"Yes, I remember," said Iola. "It all comes back to me like a dream. Oh,
+mamma! I have passed through a fiery ordeal of suffering since then. But
+it is useless," and as she continued her face assumed a brighter look,
+"to brood over the past. Let us be happy in the present. Let me tell you
+something which will please you. Do you remember telling me about your
+mother and brother?"
+
+"Yes," said Marie, in a questioning tone."
+
+"Well," continued Iola, with eyes full of gladness, "I think I have
+found them."
+
+"Can it be possible!" exclaimed Marie, in astonishment. "It is more than
+thirty years since we parted. I fear you are mistaken."
+
+"No, mamma; I have drawn my conclusions from good circumstantial
+evidence. After I was taken from you, I passed through a fearful siege
+of suffering, which would only harrow up your soul to hear. I often
+shudder at the remembrance. The last man in whose clutches I found
+myself was mean, brutal, and cruel. I was in his power when the Union
+army came into C----, where I was living. A number of colored men
+stampeded to the Union ranks, with a gentleman as a leader, whom I think
+is your brother. A friend of his reported my case to the commander of
+the post, who instantly gave orders for my release. A place was given me
+as nurse in the hospital. I attended that friend in his last illness.
+Poor fellow! he was the best friend I had in all the time I have been
+tossing about. The gentleman whom I think is your brother appeared to be
+very anxious about his friend's recovery, and was deeply affected by his
+death. In one of the last terrible battles of the war, that of Five
+Forks, he was wounded and put into the hospital ward where I was an
+attendant. For awhile he was delirious, and in his delirium he would
+sometimes think that I was his mother and at other times his sister. I
+humored his fancies, would often sing to him when he was restless, and
+my voice almost invariably soothed him to sleep. One day I sang to him
+that old hymn we used to sing on the plantation:--
+
+    "Drooping souls no longer grieve,
+          Heaven is propitious;
+     If on Christ you do believe,
+          You will find Him precious."
+
+"I remember," said Marie, with a sigh, as memories of the past swept
+over her.
+
+"After I had finished the hymn," continued Iola, "he looked earnestly
+and inquiringly into my face, and asked, 'Where did you learn that hymn?
+I have heard my mother sing it when I was a boy, but I have never heard
+it since.' I think, mamma, the words, 'I was lost but now I'm found;
+glory! glory! glory!' had imprinted themselves on his memory, and that
+his mind was assuming a higher state of intellectuality. He asked me to
+sing it again, which I did, until he fell asleep. Then I noticed a
+marked resemblance between him and Harry, and I thought, 'Suppose he
+should prove to be your long-lost brother?' During his convalescence we
+found that we had a common ground of sympathy. We were anxious to be
+reunited to our severed relations. We had both been separated from our
+mothers. He told me of his little sister, with whom he used to play. She
+had a mole on her cheek which he called her beauty spot. He had the red
+spot on his forehead which you told me of."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+DELIGHTFUL REUNIONS.
+
+Very bright and happy was the home where Marie and her children were
+gathered under one roof. Mrs. Leroy's neighbors said she looked ten
+years younger. Into that peaceful home came no fearful forebodings of
+cruel separations. Harry and Iola were passionately devoted to their
+mother, and did all they could to flood her life with sunshine.
+
+"Iola, dear," said Harry, one morning at the breakfast-table, "I have a
+new pleasure in store for you."
+
+"What is it, brother mine?" asked Iola, assuming an air of interest.
+
+"There is a young lady living in this city to whom I wish to introduce
+you. She is one of the most remarkable women I have ever met."
+
+"Do tell me all about her," said Iola. "Is she young and handsome,
+brilliant and witty?
+
+"She," replied Harry, "is more than handsome, she is lovely; more than
+witty, she is wise; more than brilliant, she is excellent."
+
+"Well, Harry," said Mrs. Leroy, smiling, "if you keep on that way I
+shall begin to fear that I shall soon be supplanted by a new daughter."
+
+"Oh, no, mamma," replied Harry, looking slightly confused, "I did not
+mean that."
+
+"Well, Harry," said Iola, amused, "go on with your description; I am
+becoming interested. Tax your powers of description to give me her
+likeness."
+
+"Well, in the first place," continued Harry, "I suppose she is about
+twenty-five years old."
+
+"Oh, the idea," interrupted Iola, "of a gentleman talking of a lady's
+age. That is a tabooed subject."
+
+"Why, Iola, that adds to the interest of my picture. It is her
+combination of earnestness and youthfulness which enhances her in my
+estimation."
+
+"Pardon the interruption," said Iola; "I am anxious to hear more about
+her."
+
+"Well, she is of medium height, somewhat slender, and well formed, with
+dark, expressive eyes, full of thought and feeling. Neither hair nor
+complexion show the least hint of blood admixture."
+
+"I am glad of it," said Iola. "Every person of unmixed blood who
+succeeds in any department of literature, art, or science is a living
+argument for the capability which is in the race."
+
+"Yes," responded Harry, "for it is not the white blood which is on trial
+before the world. Well, I will bring her around this evening."
+
+In the evening Harry brought Miss Delany to call on his sister and
+mother. They were much pleased with their visitor. Her manner was a
+combination of suavity and dignity. During the course of the evening
+they learned that she was a graduate of the University of A----. One day
+she saw in the newspapers that colored women were becoming unfit to be
+servants for white people. She then thought that if they are not fit to
+be servants for white people, they are unfit to be mothers to their own
+children, and she conceived the idea of opening a school to train future
+wives and mothers. She began on a small scale, in a humble building,
+and her work was soon crowned with gratifying success. She had enlarged
+her quarters, increased her teaching force, and had erected a large and
+commodious school-house through her own exertions and the help of
+others.
+
+Marie cordially invited her to call again, saying, as she rose to go: "I
+am very glad to have met you. Young women like you always fill my heart
+with hope for the future of our race. In you I see reflected some of the
+blessed possibilities which lie within us."
+
+"Thank you," said Miss Delany, "I want to be classed among those of whom
+it is said, 'She has done what she could.'"
+
+Very pleasant was the acquaintance which sprang up between Miss Delany
+and Iola. Although she was older than Iola, their tastes were so
+congenial, their views of life and duty in such unison, that their
+acquaintance soon ripened into strong and lasting friendship. There were
+no foolish rivalries and jealousies between them. Their lives were too
+full of zeal and earnestness for them to waste in selfishness their
+power to be moral and spiritual forces among a people who so much needed
+their helping hands. Miss Delany gave Iola a situation in her school;
+but before the term was quite over she was force to resign, her health
+having been so undermined by the fearful strain through which she had
+passed, that she was quite unequal to the task. She remained at home,
+and did what her strength would allow in assisting her mother in the
+work of canning and preserving fruits.
+
+In the meantime, Iola had been corresponding with Robert. She had told
+him of her success in finding her mother and brother, and had received
+an answer congratulating her on the glad fruition of her hopes. He also
+said that his business was flourishing, that his mother was keeping
+house for him, and, to use her own expression, was as happy as the days
+are long. She was firmly persuaded that Marie was her daughter, and she
+wanted to see her before she died.
+
+"There is one thing," continued the letter, "that your mother may
+remember her by. It was a little handkerchief on which were a number of
+cats' heads. She gave one to each of us."
+
+"I remember it well," said Marie, "she must, indeed, be my mother. Now,
+all that is needed to complete my happiness is her presence, and my
+brother's. And I intend, if I live long enough, to see them both."
+
+Iola wrote Robert that her mother remembered the incident of the
+handkerchief, and was anxious to see them.
+
+In the early fall Robert started for the South in order to clear up all
+doubts with respect to their relationship. He found Iola, Harry, and
+their mother living cosily together. Harry was teaching and was a leader
+among the rising young men of the State. His Northern education and
+later experience had done much toward adapting him to the work of the
+new era which had dawned upon the South.
+
+Marie was very glad to welcome Robert to her home, but it was almost
+impossible to recognize her brother in that tall, handsome man, with
+dark-brown eyes and wealth of chestnut-colored hair, which he readily
+lifted to show the crimson spot which lay beneath it.
+
+But as they sat together, and recalled the long-forgotten scenes of
+their childhood, they concluded that they were brother and sister.
+
+"Marie," said Robert, "how would you like to leave the South?"
+
+"I should like to go North, but I hate to leave Harry. He's a splendid
+young fellow, although I say it myself. He is so fearless and outspoken
+that I am constantly anxious about him, especially at election time."
+
+Harry then entered the room, and, being introduced to Robert, gave him a
+cordial welcome. He had just returned from school.
+
+"We were talking of you, my son," said Marie.
+
+"What were you saying? Nothing of the absent but good?" asked Harry.
+
+"I was telling your uncle, who wants me to come North, that I would go,
+but I am afraid that you will get into trouble and be murdered, as many
+others have been."
+
+"Oh, well, mother, I shall not die till my time comes. And if I die
+helping the poor and needy, I shall die at my post. Could a man choose a
+better place to die?"
+
+"Were you aware of the virulence of caste prejudice and the disabilities
+which surround the colored people when you cast your lot with them?"
+asked Robert.
+
+"Not fully," replied Harry; "but after I found out that I was colored, I
+consulted the principal of the school, where I was studying, in
+reference to the future. He said that if I stayed in the North, he had
+friends whom he believed would give me any situation I could fill, and I
+could simply take my place in the rank of workers, the same as any other
+man. Then he told me of the army, and I made up my mind to enter it,
+actuated by a desire to find my mother and sister; and at any rate I
+wanted to avenge their wrongs. I do not feel so now. Since I have seen
+the fearful ravages of war, I have learned to pity and forgive. The
+principal said he thought I would be more apt to find my family if I
+joined a colored regiment in the West than if I joined one of the Maine
+companies. I confess at first I felt a shrinking from taking the step,
+but love for my mother overcame all repugnance on my part. Now that I
+have linked my fortunes to the race I intend to do all I can for its
+elevation."
+
+As he spoke Robert gazed admiringly on the young face, lit up by noble
+purposes and lofty enthusiasm.
+
+"You are right, Harry. I think it would be treason, not only to the
+race, but to humanity, to have you ignoring your kindred and
+masquerading as a white man."
+
+"I think so, too," said Marie.
+
+"But, sister, I am anxious for you all to come North. If Harry feels
+that the place of danger is the post of duty, let him stay, and he can
+spend his vacations with us. I think both you and Iola need rest and
+change. Mother longs to see you before she dies. She feels that we have
+been the children of many prayers and tears, and I want to make her last
+days as happy as possible. The South has not been a paradise to you all
+the time, and I should think you would be willing to leave it."
+
+"Yes, that is so. Iola needs rest and change, and she would be such a
+comfort to mother. I suppose, for her sake, I will consent to have her
+go back with you, at least for awhile."
+
+In a few days, with many prayers and tears, Marie, half reluctantly,
+permitted Iola to start for the North in company with Robert Johnson,
+intending to follow as soon as she could settle her business and see
+Harry in a good boarding place.
+
+Very joyful was the greeting of the dear grandmother. Iola soon nestled
+in her heart and lent additional sunshine to her once checkered life,
+and Robert, who had so long been robbed of kith and kin, was delighted
+with the new accession to his home life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+NORTHERN EXPERIENCE.
+
+"Uncle Robert," said Iola, after she had been North several weeks, "I
+have a theory that every woman ought to know how to earn her own living.
+I believe that a great amount of sin and misery springs from the
+weakness and inefficiency of women."
+
+"Perhaps that's so, but what are you going to do about it?"
+
+"I am going to join the great rank of bread-winners. Mr. Waterman has
+advertised for a number of saleswomen, and I intend to make
+application."
+
+"When he advertises for help he means white women," said Robert.
+
+"He said nothing about color," responded Iola.
+
+"I don't suppose he did. He doesn't expect any colored girl to apply."
+
+"Well, I think I could fill the place. At least I should like to try.
+And I do not think when I apply that I am in duty bound to tell him my
+great-grandmother was a negro."
+
+"Well, child, there is no necessity for you to go out to work. You are
+perfectly welcome here, and I hope that you feel so."
+
+"Oh, I certainly do. But still I would rather earn my own living."
+
+That morning Iola applied for the situation, and, being prepossessing in
+her appearance, she obtained it.
+
+For awhile everything went as pleasantly as a marriage bell. But one day
+a young colored lady, well-dressed and well-bred in her manner, entered
+the store. It was an acquaintance which Iola had formed in the colored
+church which she attended. Iola gave her a few words of cordial
+greeting, and spent a few moments chatting with her. The attention of
+the girls who sold at the same counter was attracted, and their
+suspicion awakened. Iola was a stranger in that city. Who was she, and
+who were her people? At last it was decided that one of the girls should
+act as a spy, and bring what information she could concerning Iola.
+
+The spy was successful. She found out that Iola was living in a good
+neighborhood, but that none of the neighbors knew her. The man of the
+house was very fair, but there was an old woman whom Iola called
+"Grandma," and she was unmistakably colored. The story was sufficient.
+If that were true, Iola must be colored, and she should be treated
+accordingly.
+
+Without knowing the cause, Iola noticed a chill in the social atmosphere
+of the store, which communicated itself to the cash-boys, and they
+treated her so insolently that her situation became very uncomfortable.
+She saw the proprietor, resigned her position, and asked for and
+obtained a letter of recommendation to another merchant who had
+advertised for a saleswoman.
+
+In applying for the place, she took the precaution to inform her
+employer that she was colored. It made no difference to him; but he
+said:--
+
+"Don't say anything about it to the girls. They might not be willing to
+work with you."
+
+Iola smiled, did not promise, and accepted the situation. She entered
+upon her duties, and proved quite acceptable as a saleswoman.
+
+One day, during an interval in business, the girls began to talk of
+their respective churches, and the question was put to Iola:--
+
+"Where do you go to church?"
+
+"I go," she replied, "to Rev. River's church, corner of Eighth and L
+Streets."
+
+"Oh, no; you must be mistaken. There is no church there except a colored
+one."
+
+"That is where I go."
+
+"Why do you go there?"
+
+"Because I liked it when I came here, and joined it."
+
+"A member of a colored church? What under heaven possessed you to do
+such a thing?"
+
+"Because I wished to be with my own people."
+
+Here the interrogator stopped, and looked surprised and pained, and
+almost instinctively moved a little farther from her. After the store
+was closed, the girls had an animated discussion, which resulted in the
+information being sent to Mr. Cohen that Iola was a colored girl, and
+that they protested against her being continued in his employ. Mr. Cohen
+yielded to the pressure, and informed Iola that her services were no
+longer needed.
+
+When Robert came home in the evening, he found that Iola had lost her
+situation, and was looking somewhat discouraged.
+
+"Well, uncle," she said, "I feel out of heart. It seems as if the
+prejudice pursues us through every avenue of life, and assigns us the
+lowest places."
+
+"That is so," replied Robert, thoughtfully.
+
+"And yet I am determined," said Iola, "to win for myself a place in the
+fields of labor. I have heard of a place in New England, and I mean to
+try for it, even if I only stay a few months."
+
+"Well, if you _will_ go, say nothing about your color."
+
+"Uncle Robert, I see no necessity for proclaiming that fact on the
+house-top. Yet I am resolved that nothing shall tempt me to deny it. The
+best blood in my veins is African blood, and I am not ashamed of it."
+
+"Hurrah for you!" exclaimed Robert, laughing heartily.
+
+As Iola wished to try the world for herself, and so be prepared for any
+emergency, her uncle and grandmother were content to have her go to New
+England. The town to which she journeyed was only a few hours' ride from
+the city of P----, and Robert, knowing that there is no teacher like
+experience, was willing that Iola should have the benefit of her
+teaching.
+
+Iola, on arriving in H----, sought the firm, and was informed that her
+services were needed. She found it a pleasant and lucrative position.
+There was only one drawback--her boarding place was too far from her
+work. There was an institution conducted by professed Christian women,
+which was for the special use of respectable young working girls. This
+was in such a desirable location that she called at the house to engage
+board.
+
+The matron conducted her over the house, and grew so friendly in the
+interview that she put her arm around her, and seemed to look upon Iola
+as a desirable accession to the home. But, just as Iola was leaving, she
+said to the matron: "I must be honest with you; I am a colored woman."
+
+Swift as light a change passed over the face of the matron. She withdrew
+her arm from Iola, and said: "I must see the board of managers about
+it."
+
+When the board met, Iola's case was put before them, but they decided
+not to receive her. And these women, professors of a religion which
+taught, "If ye have respect to persons ye commit sin," virtually shut
+the door in her face because of the outcast blood in her veins.
+
+Considerable feeling was aroused by the action of these women, who, to
+say the least, had not put their religion in the most favorable light.
+
+Iola continued to work for the firm until she received letters from her
+mother and uncle, which informed her that her mother, having arranged
+her affairs in the South, was ready to come North. She then resolved to
+return, to the city of P----, to be ready to welcome her mother on her
+arrival.
+
+Iola arrived in time to see that everything was in order for her
+mother's reception. Her room was furnished neatly, but with those
+touches of beauty that womanly hands are such adepts in giving. A few
+charming pictures adorned the walls, and an easy chair stood waiting to
+receive the travel-worn mother. Robert and Iola met her at the depot;
+and grandma was on her feet at the first sound of the bell, opened the
+door, clasped Marie to her heart, and nearly fainted for joy.
+
+"Can it be possible dat dis is my little Marie?" she exclaimed.
+
+It did seem almost impossible to realize that this faded woman, with
+pale cheeks and prematurely whitened hair, was the rosy-cheeked child
+from whom she had been parted more than thirty years.
+
+"Well," said Robert, after the first joyous greeting was over, "love is
+a very good thing, but Marie has had a long journey and needs something
+that will stick by the ribs. How about dinner, mother?"
+
+"It's all ready," said Mrs. Johnson.
+
+After Marie had gone to her room and changed her dress, she came down
+and partook of the delicious repast which her mother and Iola had
+prepared for her.
+
+In a few days Marie was settled in the home, and was well pleased with
+the change. The only drawback to her happiness was the absence of her
+son, and she expected him to come North after the closing of his school.
+
+"Uncle Robert," said Iola, after her mother had been with them several
+weeks, "I am tired of being idle."
+
+"What's the matter now?" asked Robert. "You are surely not going East
+again, and leave your mother?"
+
+"Oh, I hope not," said Marie, anxiously. "I have been so long without
+you."
+
+"No, mamma, I am not going East. I can get suitable employment here in
+the city of P----."
+
+"But, Iola," said Robert, "you have tried, and been defeated. Why
+subject yourself to the same experience again?"
+
+"Uncle Robert, I think that every woman should have some skill or art
+which would insure her at least a comfortable support. I believe there
+would be less unhappy marriages if labor were more honored among women."
+
+"Well, Iola," said her mother, "what is your skill?"
+
+"Nursing. I was very young when I went into the hospital, but I
+succeeded so well that the doctor said I must have been a born nurse.
+Now, I see by the papers, that a gentleman who has an invalid daughter
+wants some one who can be a nurse and companion for her, and I mean to
+apply for the situation. I do not think, if I do my part well in that
+position, that the blood in my veins will be any bar to my success."
+
+A troubled look stole over Marie's face. She sighed faintly, but made no
+remonstrance. And so it was decided that Iola should apply for the
+situation.
+
+Iola made application, and was readily accepted. Her patient was a frail
+girl of fifteen summers, who was ill with a low fever. Iola nursed her
+carefully, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing her restored to
+health. During her stay, Mr. Cloten, the father of the invalid, had
+learned some of the particulars of Iola's Northern experience as a
+bread-winner, and he resolved to give her employment in his store when
+her services were no longer needed in the house. As soon as a vacancy
+occurred he gave Iola a place in his store.
+
+The morning she entered on her work he called his employés together, and
+told them that Miss Iola had colored blood in her veins, but that he was
+going to employ her and give her a desk. If any one objected to working
+with her, he or she could step to the cashier's desk and receive what
+was due. Not a man remonstrated, not a woman demurred; and Iola at last
+found a place in the great army of bread-winners, which the traditions
+of her blood could not affect.
+
+"How did you succeed?" asked Mrs. Cloten of her husband, when he
+returned to dinner.
+
+"Admirably! 'Everything is lovely and the goose hangs high.' I gave my
+employés to understand that they could leave if they did not wish to
+work with Miss Leroy. Not one of them left, or showed any disposition
+to rebel."
+
+"I am very glad," said Mrs. Cloten. "I am ashamed of the way she has been
+treated in our city, when seeking to do her share in the world's work. I
+am glad that you were brave enough to face this cruel prejudice, and
+give her a situation."
+
+"Well, my dear, do not make me a hero for a single act. I am grateful
+for the care Miss Leroy gave our Daisy. Money can buy services, but it
+cannot purchase tender, loving sympathy. I was also determined to let my
+employés know that I, not they, commanded my business. So, do not crown
+me a hero until I have won a niche in the temple of fame. In dealing
+with Southern prejudice against the negro, we Northerners could do it
+with better grace if we divested ourselves of our own. We irritate the
+South by our criticisms, and, while I confess that there is much that is
+reprehensible in their treatment of colored people, yet if our Northern
+civilization is higher than theirs we should 'criticise by creation.' We
+should stamp ourselves on the South, and not let the South stamp itself
+on us. When we have learned to treat men according to the complexion of
+their souls, and not the color of their skins, we will have given our
+best contribution towards the solution of the negro problem."
+
+"I feel, my dear," said Mrs. Cloten, "that what you have done is a right
+step in the right direction, and I hope that other merchants will do the
+same. We have numbers of business men, rich enough to afford themselves
+the luxury of a good conscience."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+AN OLD FRIEND.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Leroy," said a cheery voice in tones of glad
+surprise, and, intercepting her path, Dr. Gresham stood before Iola,
+smiling, and reaching out his hand.
+
+"Why, Dr. Gresham, is this you?" said Iola, lifting her eyes to that
+well-remembered face. "It has been several years since we met. How have
+you been all this time, and where?"
+
+"I have been sick, and am just now recovering from malaria and nervous
+prostration. I am attending a medical convention in this city, and hope
+that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again."
+
+Iola hesitated, and then replied: "I should be pleased to have you
+call."
+
+"It would give me great pleasure. Where shall I call?"
+
+"My home is 1006 South Street, but I am only at home in the evenings."
+
+They walked together a short distance till they reached Mr. Cloten's
+store; then, bidding the doctor good morning, Iola left him repeating to
+himself the words of his favorite poet:--
+
+    "Thou art too lovely and precious a gem
+      To be bound to their burdens and sullied by them."
+
+No one noticed the deep flush on Iola's face as she entered the store,
+nor the subdued, quiet manner with which she applied herself to her
+tasks. She was living over again the past, with its tender, sad, and
+thrilling reminiscences.
+
+In the evening Dr. Gresham called on Iola. She met him with a pleasant
+welcome. Dr. Gresham gazed upon her with unfeigned admiration, and
+thought that the years, instead of detracting from, had only
+intensified, her loveliness. He had thought her very beautiful in the
+hospital, in her gray dress and white collar, with her glorious wealth
+of hair drawn over her ears. But now, when he saw her with that hair
+artistically arranged, and her finely-proportioned form arrayed in a
+dark crimson dress, relieved by a shimmer of lace and a bow of white
+ribbon at her throat, he thought her superbly handsome. The lines which
+care had written upon her young face had faded away. There was no
+undertone of sorrow in her voice as she stood up before him in the calm
+loveliness of her ripened womanhood, radiant in beauty and gifted in
+intellect. Time and failing health had left their traces upon Dr.
+Gresham. His step was less bounding, his cheek a trifle paler, his
+manner somewhat graver than it was when he had parted from Iola in the
+hospital, but his meeting with her had thrilled his heart with
+unexpected pleasure. Hopes and sentiments which long had slept awoke at
+the touch of her hand and the tones of her voice, and Dr. Gresham found
+himself turning to the past, with its sad memories and disappointed
+hopes. No other face had displaced her image in his mind; no other love
+had woven itself around every tendril of his soul. His heart and hand
+were just as free as they were the hour they had parted.
+
+"To see you again," said Dr. Gresham, "is a great and unexpected
+pleasure."
+
+"You had not forgotten me, then?" said Iola, smiling.
+
+"Forget you! I would just as soon forget my own existence. I do not
+think that time will ever efface the impressions of those days in which
+we met so often. When last we met you were intending to search for your
+mother. Have you been successful?"
+
+"More than successful," said Iola, with a joyous ring in her voice. "I
+have found my mother, brother, grandmother, and uncle, and, except my
+brother, we are all living together, and we are so happy. Excuse me a
+few minutes," she said, and left the room. Iola soon returned, bringing
+with her her mother and grandmother.
+
+"These," said Iola, introducing her mother and grandmother, "are the
+once-severed branches of our family; and this gentleman you have seen
+before," continued Iola, as Robert entered the room.
+
+Dr. Gresham looked scrutinizingly at him and said: "Your face looks
+familiar, but I saw so many faces at the hospital that I cannot just now
+recall your name."
+
+"Doctor," said Robert Johnson, "I was one of your last patients, and I
+was with Tom Anderson when he died."
+
+"Oh, yes," replied Dr. Gresham; "it all comes back to me. You were
+wounded at the battle of Five Forks, were you not?"
+
+"Yes," said Robert.
+
+"I saw you when you were recovering. You told me that you thought you
+had a clue to your lost relatives, from whom you had been so long
+separated. How have you succeeded?"
+
+"Admirably! I have been fortunate in finding my mother, my sister, and
+her children."
+
+"Ah, indeed! I am delighted to hear it. Where are they?"
+
+"They are right here. This is my mother," said Robert, bending fondly
+over her, as she returned his recognition with an expression of intense
+satisfaction; "and this," he continued, "is my sister, and Miss Leroy is
+my niece."
+
+"Is it possible? I am very glad to hear it. It has been said that every
+cloud has its silver lining, and the silver lining of our war cloud is
+the redemption of a race and the reunion of severed hearts. War is a
+dreadful thing; but worse than the war was the slavery which preceded
+it."
+
+"Slavery," said Iola, "was a fearful cancer eating into the nation's
+heart, sapping its vitality, and undermining its life."
+
+"And war," said Dr. Gresham, "was the dreadful surgery by which the
+disease was eradicated. The cancer has been removed, but for years to
+come I fear that we will have to deal with the effects of the disease.
+But I believe that we have vitality enough to outgrow those effects."
+
+"I think, Doctor," said Iola, "that there is but one remedy by which our
+nation can recover from the evil entailed upon her by slavery."
+
+"What is that?" asked Robert.
+
+"A fuller comprehension of the claims of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and
+their application to our national life."
+
+"Yes," said Robert; "while politicians are stumbling on the barren
+mountains of fretful controversy and asking what shall we do with the
+negro? I hold that Jesus answered that question nearly two thousand
+years ago when he said, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,
+do ye even so to them.'"
+
+"Yes," said Dr. Gresham; "the application of that rule in dealing with
+the negro would solve the whole problem."
+
+"Slavery," said Mrs. Leroy, "is dead, but the spirit which animated it
+still lives; and I think that a reckless disregard for human life is
+more the outgrowth of slavery than any actual hatred of the negro."
+
+"The problem of the nation," continued Dr. Gresham, "is not what men
+will do with the negro, but what will they do with the reckless, lawless
+white men who murder, lynch and burn their fellow-citizens. To me these
+lynchings and burnings are perfectly alarming. Both races have reacted
+on each other--men fettered the slave and cramped their own souls;
+denied him knowledge, and darkened their spiritual insight; subdued him
+to the pliancy of submission, and in their turn became the thralls of
+public opinion. The negro came here from the heathenism of Africa; but
+the young colonies could not take into their early civilization a stream
+of barbaric blood without being affected by its influence and the negro,
+poor and despised as he is, has laid his hands on our Southern
+civilization and helped mould its character."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Leroy; "the colored nurse could not nestle her master's
+child in her arms, hold up his baby footsteps on their floors, and walk
+with him through the impressible and formative period of his young life
+without leaving upon him the impress of her hand."
+
+"I am glad," said Robert, "for the whole nation's sake, that slavery
+has been destroyed."
+
+"And our work," said Dr. Gresham, "is to build over the desolations of
+the past a better and brighter future. The great distinction between
+savagery and civilization is the creation and maintenance of law.
+A people cannot habitually trample on law and justice without
+retrograding toward barbarism. But I am hopeful that time will bring us
+changes for the better; that, as we get farther away from the war, we
+will outgrow the animosities and prejudices engendered by slavery. The
+short-sightedness of our fathers linked the negro's destiny to ours. We
+are feeling the friction of the ligatures which bind us together, but I
+hope that the time will speedily come when the best members of both
+races will unite for the maintenance of law and order and the progress
+and prosperity of the country, and that the intelligence and virtue of
+the South will be strong to grapple effectually with its ignorance and
+vice."
+
+"I hope that time will speedily come," said Marie. "My son is in the
+South, and I am always anxious for his safety. He is not only a teacher,
+but a leading young man in the community where he lives."
+
+"Yes," said Robert, "and when I see the splendid work he is doing in the
+South, I am glad that, instead of trying to pass for a white man, he has
+cast his lot with us."
+
+"But," answered Dr. Gresham, "he would possess advantages as a white man
+which he could not if he were known to be colored."
+
+"Doctor," said Iola, decidedly, "he has greater advantages as a colored
+man."
+
+"I do not understand you," said Dr. Gresham, looking somewhat puzzled.
+
+"Doctor," continued Iola, "I do not think life's highest advantages are
+those that we can see with our eyes or grasp with our hands. To whom
+to-day is the world most indebted--to its millionaires or to its
+martyrs?"
+
+"Taking it from the ideal standpoint," replied the doctor, "I should say
+its martyrs."
+
+"To be," continued Iola, "the leader of a race to higher planes of
+thought and action, to teach men clearer views of life and duty, and to
+inspire their souls with loftier aims, is a far greater privilege than
+it is to open the gates of material prosperity and fill every home with
+sensuous enjoyment."
+
+"And I," said Mrs. Leroy, her face aglow with fervid feeling, "would
+rather--ten thousand times rather--see Harry the friend and helper of
+the poor and ignorant than the companion of men who, under the cover of
+night, mask their faces and ride the country on lawless raids."
+
+"Dr. Gresham," said Robert, "we ought to be the leading nation of the
+earth, whose influence and example should give light to the world."
+
+"Not simply," said Iola, "a nation building up a great material
+prosperity, founding magnificent cities, grasping the commerce of the
+world, or excelling in literature, art, and science, but a nation
+wearing sobriety as a crown and righteousness as the girdle of her
+loins."
+
+Dr. Gresham gazed admiringly upon Iola. A glow of enthusiasm overspread
+her beautiful, expressive face. There was a rapt and far-off look in her
+eye, as if she were looking beyond the present pain to a brighter
+future for the race with which she was identified, and felt the
+grandeur of a divine commission to labor for its uplifting.
+
+As Dr. Gresham was parting with Robert, he said: "This meeting has been
+a very unexpected pleasure. I have spent a delightful evening. I only
+regret that I had not others to share it with me. A doctor from the
+South, a regular Bourbon, is stopping at the hotel. I wish he could have
+been here to-night. Come down to the Concordia, Mr. Johnson, to-morrow
+night. If you know any colored man who is a strong champion of equal
+rights, bring him along. Good-night. I shall look for you," said the
+doctor, as he left the door.
+
+When Robert returned to the parlor he said to Iola: "Dr. Gresham has
+invited me to come to his hotel to-morrow night, and to bring some
+wide-awake colored man with me. There is a Southerner whom he wishes me
+to meet. I suppose he wants to discuss the negro problem, as they call
+it. He wants some one who can do justice to the subject. I wonder whom I
+can take with me?"
+
+"I will tell you who, I think, will be a capital one to take with you,
+and I believe he would go," said Iola.
+
+"Who?" asked Robert.
+
+"Rev. Carmicle, your pastor."
+
+"He is just the one," said Robert, "courteous in his manner and very
+scholarly in his attainments. He is a man whom if everybody hated him no
+one could despise him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+OPEN QUESTIONS.
+
+In the evening Robert and Rev. Carmicle called on Dr. Gresham, and found
+Dr. Latrobe, the Southerner, and a young doctor by the name of Latimer,
+already there. Dr. Gresham introduced Dr. Latrobe, but it was a new
+experience to receive colored men socially. His wits, however, did not
+forsake him, and he received the introduction and survived it.
+
+"Permit me, now," said Dr. Gresham, "to introduce you to my friend, Dr.
+Latimer, who is attending our convention. He expects to go South and
+labor among the colored people. Don't you think that there is a large
+field of usefulness before him?"
+
+"Yes," replied Dr. Latrobe, "if he will let politics alone."
+
+"And why let politics alone?" asked Dr. Gresham.
+
+"Because," replied Dr. Latrobe, "we Southerners will never submit to
+negro supremacy. We will never abandon our Caucasian civilization to an
+inferior race."
+
+"Have you any reason," inquired Rev. Carmicle, "to dread that a race
+which has behind it the heathenism of Africa and the slavery of America,
+with its inheritance of ignorance and poverty, will be able, in less
+than one generation, to domineer over a race which has behind it ages of
+dominion, freedom, education, and Christianity?"
+
+A slight shade of vexation and astonishment passed over the face of Dr.
+Latrobe. He hesitated a moment, then replied:--
+
+"I am not afraid of the negro as he stands alone, but what I dread is
+that in some closely-contested election ambitious men will use him to
+hold the balance of power and make him an element of danger. He is
+ignorant, poor, and clannish, and they may impact him as their policy
+would direct."
+
+"Any more," asked Robert, "than the leaders of the Rebellion did the
+ignorant, poor whites during our late conflict?"
+
+"Ignorance, poverty, and clannishness," said Dr. Gresham, "are more
+social than racial conditions, which may be outgrown."
+
+"And I think," said Rev. Carmicle, "that we are outgrowing them as fast
+as any other people would have done under the same conditions."
+
+"The negro," replied Dr. Latrobe, "always has been and always will be an
+element of discord in our country."
+
+"What, then, is your remedy?" asked Dr. Gresham.
+
+"I would eliminate him from the politics of the country."
+
+"As disfranchisement is a punishment for crime, is it just to punish a
+man before he transgresses the law?" asked Dr. Gresham.
+
+"If," said Dr. Latimer, "the negro is ignorant, poor, and clannish, let
+us remember that in part of our land it was once a crime to teach him to
+read. If he is poor, for ages he was forced to bend to unrequited toil.
+If he is clannish, society has segregated him to himself."
+
+"And even," said Robert, "has given him a negro pew in your churches
+and a negro seat at your communion table."
+
+"Wisely, or unwisely," said Dr. Gresham, "the Government has put the
+ballot in his hands. It is better to teach him to use that ballot aright
+than to intimidate him by violence or vitiate his vote by fraud."
+
+"To-day," said Dr. Latimer, "the negro is not plotting in beer-saloons
+against the peace and order of society. His fingers are not dripping
+with dynamite, neither is he spitting upon your flag, nor flaunting the
+red banner of anarchy in your face."
+
+"Power," said Dr. Gresham, "naturally gravitates into the strongest
+hands. The class who have the best brain and most wealth can strike with
+the heaviest hand. I have too much faith in the inherent power of the
+white race to dread the competition of any other people under heaven."
+
+"I think you Northerners fail to do us justice," said Dr. Latrobe. "The
+men into whose hands you put the ballot were our slaves, and we would
+rather die than submit to them. Look at the carpet-bag governments the
+wicked policy of the Government inflicted upon us. It was only done to
+humiliate us."
+
+"Oh, no!" said Dr. Gresham, flushing, and rising to his feet. "We had no
+other alternative than putting the ballot in their hands."
+
+"I will not deny," said Rev. Carmicle, "that we have made woeful
+mistakes, but with our antecedents it would have been miraculous if we
+had never committed any mistakes or made any blunders."
+
+"They were allies in war," continued Dr. Gresham, "and I am sorry that
+we have not done more to protect them in peace."
+
+"Protect them in peace!" said Robert, bitterly. "What protection does
+the colored man receive from the hands of the Government? I know of no
+civilized country outside of America where men are still burned for real
+or supposed crimes."
+
+"Johnson," said Dr. Gresham, compassionately, "it is impossible to have
+a policeman at the back of each colored man's chair, and a squad of
+soldiers at each crossroad, to detect with certainty, and punish with
+celerity, each invasion of his rights. We tried provisional governments
+and found them a failure. It seemed like leaving our former allies to be
+mocked with the name of freedom and tortured with the essence of
+slavery. The ballot is our weapon of defense, and we gave it to them for
+theirs."
+
+"And there," said Dr. Latrobe, emphatically, "is where you signally
+failed. We are numerically stronger in Congress to-day than when we went
+out. You made the law, but the administration of it is in our hands, and
+we are a unit."
+
+"But, Doctor," said Rev. Carmicle, "you cannot willfully deprive the
+negro of a single right as a citizen without sending demoralization
+through your own ranks."
+
+"I think," said Dr. Latrobe, "that we are right in suppressing the
+negro's vote. This is a white man's government, and a white man's
+country. We own nineteen-twentieths of the land, and have about the same
+ratio of intelligence. I am a white man, and, right or wrong, I go with
+my race."
+
+"But, Doctor," said Rev. Carmicle, "there are rights more sacred than
+the rights of property and superior intelligence."
+
+"What are they?" asked Dr. Latrobe.
+
+"The rights of life and liberty," replied Rev. Carmicle.
+
+"That is true," said Dr. Gresham; "and your Southern civilization will
+be inferior until you shall have placed protection to those rights at
+its base, not in theory but in fact."
+
+"But, Dr. Gresham, we have to live with these people, and the North is
+constantly irritating us by its criticisms."
+
+"The world," said Dr. Gresham, "is fast becoming a vast whispering
+gallery, and lips once sealed can now state their own grievances and
+appeal to the conscience of the nation, and, as long as a sense of
+justice and mercy retains a hold upon the heart of our nation, you
+cannot practice violence and injustice without rousing a spirit of
+remonstrance. And if it were not so I would be ashamed of my country and
+of my race."
+
+"You speak," said Dr. Latrobe, "as if we had wronged the negro by
+enslaving him and being unwilling to share citizenship with him. I think
+that slavery has been of incalculable value to the negro. It has lifted
+him out of barbarism and fetich worship, given him a language of
+civilization, and introduced him to the world's best religion. Think
+what he was in Africa and what he is in America!"
+
+"The negro," said Dr. Gresham, thoughtfully, "is not the only branch of
+the human race which has been low down in the scale of civilization and
+freedom, and which has outgrown the measure of his chains. Slavery,
+polygamy, and human sacrifices have been practiced among Europeans in
+by-gone days; and when Tyndall tells us that out of savages unable to
+count to the number of their fingers and speaking only a language of
+nouns and verbs, arise at length our Newtons and Shakspeares, I do not
+see that the negro could not have learned our language and received our
+religion without the intervention of ages of slavery."
+
+"If," said Rev. Carmicle, "Mohammedanism, with its imperfect creed, is
+successful in gathering large numbers of negroes beneath the Crescent,
+could not a legitimate commerce and the teachings of a pure Christianity
+have done as much to plant the standard of the Cross over the ramparts
+of sin and idolatry in Africa? Surely we cannot concede that the light
+of the Crescent is greater than the glory of the Cross, that there is
+less constraining power in the Christ of Calvary than in the Prophet of
+Arabia? I do not think that I underrate the difficulties in your way
+when I say that you young men are holding in your hands golden
+opportunities which it would be madness and folly to throw away. It is
+your grand opportunity to help build up a new South, not on the shifting
+sands of policy and expediency, but on the broad basis of equal justice
+and universal freedom. Do this and you will be blessed, and will make
+your life a blessing."
+
+After Robert and Rev. Carmicle had left the hotel, Drs. Latimer,
+Gresham, and Latrobe sat silent and thoughtful awhile, when Dr. Gresham
+broke the silence by asking Dr. Latrobe how he had enjoyed the evening.
+
+"Very pleasantly," he replied. "I was quite interested in that parson.
+Where was he educated?"
+
+"In Oxford, I believe. I was pleased to hear him say that he had no
+white blood in his veins."
+
+"I should think not," replied Dr. Latrobe, "from his looks. But one
+swallow does not make a summer. It is the exceptions which prove the
+rule."
+
+"Don't you think," asked Dr. Gresham, "that we have been too hasty in
+our judgment of the negro? He has come handicapped into life, and is now
+on trial before the world. But it is not fair to subject him to the same
+tests that you would a white man. I believe that there are possibilities
+of growth in the race which we have never comprehended."
+
+"The negro," said Dr. Latrobe, "is perfectly comprehensible to me. The
+only way to get along with him is to let him know his place, and make
+him keep it."
+
+"I think," replied Dr. Gresham, "every man's place is the one he is best
+fitted for."
+
+"Why," asked Dr. Latimer, "should any place be assigned to the negro
+more than to the French, Irish, or German?"
+
+"Oh," replied Dr. Latrobe, "they are all Caucasians."
+
+"Well," said Dr. Gresham, "is all excellence summed up in that branch of
+the human race?"
+
+"I think," said Dr. Latrobe, proudly, "that we belong to the highest
+race on earth and the negro to the lowest."
+
+"And yet," said Dr. Latimer, "you have consorted with them till you have
+bleached their faces to the whiteness of your own. Your children nestle
+in their bosoms; they are around you as body servants, and yet if one of
+them should attempt to associate with you your bitterest scorn and
+indignation would be visited upon them."
+
+"I think," said Dr. Latrobe, "that feeling grows out of our Anglo-Saxon
+regard for the marriage relation. These white negroes are of
+illegitimate origin, and we would scorn to share our social life with
+them. Their blood is tainted."
+
+"Who tainted it?" asked Dr. Latimer, bitterly. "You give absolution to
+the fathers, and visit the misfortunes of the mothers upon the
+children."
+
+"But, Doctor, what kind of society would we have if we put down the bars
+and admitted everybody to social equality?"
+
+"This idea of social equality," said Dr. Latimer, "is only a bugbear
+which frightens well-meaning people from dealing justly with the negro.
+I know of no place on earth where there is perfect social equality, and
+I doubt if there is such a thing in heaven. The sinner who repents on
+his death-bed cannot be the equal of St. Paul or the Beloved Disciple."
+
+"Doctor," said Dr. Gresham, "I sometimes think that the final solution
+of this question will be the absorption of the negro into our race."
+
+"Never! never!" exclaimed Dr. Latrobe, vehemently. "It would be a death
+blow to American civilization."
+
+"Why, Doctor," said Dr. Latimer, "you Southerners began this absorption
+before the war. I understand that in one decade the mixed bloods rose
+from one-ninth to one-eighth of the population, and that as early as
+1663 a law was passed in Maryland to prevent English women from
+intermarrying with slaves; and, even now, your laws against
+miscegenation presuppose that you apprehend danger from that source."
+
+"Doctor, it is no use talking," replied Dr. Latrobe, wearily. "There
+are niggers who are as white as I am, but the taint of blood is there
+and we always exclude it."
+
+"How do you know it is there?" asked Dr. Gresham.
+
+"Oh, there are tricks of blood which always betray them. My eyes are
+more practiced than yours. I can always tell them. Now, that Johnson is
+as white as any man; but I knew he was a nigger the moment I saw him. I
+saw it in his eye."
+
+Dr. Latimer smiled at Dr. Latrobe's assertion, but did not attempt to
+refute it; and bade him good-night.
+
+"I think," said Dr. Latrobe, "that our war was the great mistake of the
+nineteenth century. It has left us very serious complications. We cannot
+amalgamate with the negroes. We cannot expatriate them. Now, what are we
+to do with them?"
+
+"Deal justly with them," said Dr. Gresham, "and let them alone. Try to
+create a moral sentiment in the nation, which will consider a wrong done
+to the weakest of them as a wrong done to the whole community. Whenever
+you find ministers too righteous to be faithless, cowardly, and time
+serving; women too Christly to be scornful; and public men too noble to
+be tricky and too honest to pander to the prejudices of the people,
+stand by them and give them your moral support."
+
+"Doctor," said Latrobe, "with your views you ought to be a preacher
+striving to usher in the millennium."
+
+"It can't come too soon," replied Dr. Gresham.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+DIVERGING PATHS.
+
+On the eve of his departure from the city of P----, Dr. Gresham called
+on Iola, and found her alone. They talked awhile of reminiscences of the
+war and hospital life, when Dr. Gresham, approaching Iola, said:--
+
+"Miss Leroy, I am glad the great object of your life is accomplished,
+and that you have found all your relatives. Years have passed since we
+parted, years in which I have vainly tried to get a trace of you and
+have been baffled, but I have found you at last!" Clasping her hand in
+his, he continued, "I would it were so that I should never lose you
+again! Iola, will you not grant me the privilege of holding this hand as
+mine all through the future of our lives? Your search for your mother is
+ended. She is well cared for. Are you not free at last to share with me
+my Northern home, free to be mine as nothing else on earth is mine." Dr.
+Gresham looked eagerly on Iola's face, and tried to read its varying
+expression. "Iola, I learned to love you in the hospital. I have tried
+to forget you, but it has been all in vain. Your image is just as deeply
+engraven on my heart as it was the day we parted."
+
+"Doctor," she replied, sadly, but firmly, as she withdrew her hand from
+his, "I feel now as I felt then, that there is an insurmountable barrier
+between us."
+
+"What is it, Iola?" asked Dr. Gresham, anxiously.
+
+"It is the public opinion which assigns me a place with the colored
+people."
+
+"But what right has public opinion to interfere with our marriage
+relations? Why should we yield to its behests?"
+
+"Because it is stronger than we are, and we cannot run counter to it
+without suffering its penalties."
+
+"And what are they, Iola? Shadows that you merely dread?"
+
+"No! no! the penalties of social ostracism North and South, except here
+and there some grand and noble exceptions. I do not think that you fully
+realize how much prejudice against colored people permeates society,
+lowers the tone of our religion, and reacts upon the life of the nation.
+After freedom came, mamma was living in the city of A----, and wanted to
+unite with a Christian church there. She made application for
+membership. She passed her examination as a candidate, and was received
+as a church member. When she was about to make her first communion, she
+unintentionally took her seat at the head of the column. The elder who
+was administering the communion gave her the bread in the order in which
+she sat, but before he gave her the wine some one touched him on the
+shoulder and whispered a word in his ear. He then passed mamma by, gave
+the cup to others, and then returned to her. From that rite connected
+with the holiest memories of earth, my poor mother returned humiliated
+and depressed."
+
+"What a shame!" exclaimed Dr. Gresham, indignantly.
+
+"I have seen," continued Iola, "the same spirit manifested in the North.
+Mamma once attempted to do missionary work in this city. One day she
+found an outcast colored girl, whom she wished to rescue. She took her
+to an asylum for fallen women and made an application for her, but was
+refused. Colored girls were not received there. Soon after mamma found
+among the colored people an outcast white girl. Mamma's sympathies,
+unfettered by class distinction, were aroused in her behalf, and, in
+company with two white ladies, she went with the girl to that same
+refuge. For her the door was freely opened and admittance readily
+granted. It was as if two women were sinking in the quicksands, and on
+the solid land stood other women with life-lines in their hands, seeing
+the deadly sands slowly creeping up around the hapless victims. To one
+they readily threw the lines of deliverance, but for the other there was
+not one strand of salvation. Sometime since, to the same asylum, came a
+poor fallen girl who had escaped from the clutches of a wicked woman.
+For her the door would have been opened, had not the vile woman from
+whom she was escaping followed her to that place of refuge and revealed
+the fact that she belonged to the colored race. That fact was enough to
+close the door upon her, and to send her back to sin and to suffer, and
+perhaps to die as a wretched outcast. And yet in this city where a
+number of charities are advertised, I do not think there is one of them
+which, in appealing to the public, talks more religion than the managers
+of this asylum. This prejudice against the colored race environs our
+lives and mocks our aspirations."
+
+"Iola, I see no use in your persisting that you are colored when your
+eyes are as blue and complexion as white as mine."
+
+"Doctor, were I your wife, are there not people who would caress me as
+a white woman who would shrink from me in scorn if they knew I had one
+drop of negro blood in my veins? When mistaken for a white woman, I
+should hear things alleged against the race at which my blood would
+boil. No, Doctor, I am not willing to live under a shadow of concealment
+which I thoroughly hate as if the blood in my veins were an undetected
+crime of my soul."
+
+"Iola, dear, surely you paint the picture too darkly."
+
+"Doctor, I have painted it with my heart's blood. It is easier to
+outgrow the dishonor of crime than the disabilities of color. You have
+created in this country an aristocracy of color wide enough to include
+the South with its treason and Utah with its abominations, but too
+narrow to include the best and bravest colored man who bared his breast
+to the bullets of the enemy during your fratricidal strife. Is not the
+most arrant Rebel to-day more acceptable to you than the most faithful
+colored man?"
+
+"No! no!" exclaimed Dr. Gresham, vehemently. "You are wrong. I belong to
+the Grand Army of the Republic. We have no separate State Posts for the
+colored people, and, were such a thing proposed, the majority of our
+members, I believe, would be against it. In Congress colored men have
+the same seats as white men, and the color line is slowly fading out in
+our public institutions."
+
+"But how is it in the Church?" asked Iola.
+
+"The Church is naturally conservative. It preserves old truths, even if
+it is somewhat slow in embracing new ideas. It has its social as well as
+its spiritual side. Society is woman's realm. The majority of church
+members are women, who are said to be the aristocratic element of our
+country. I fear that one of the last strongholds of this racial
+prejudice will be found beneath the shadow of some of our churches. I
+think, on account of this social question, that large bodies of
+Christian temperance women and other reformers, in trying to reach the
+colored people even for their own good, will be quicker to form
+separate associations than our National Grand Army, whose ranks are open
+to black and white, liberals and conservatives, saints and agnostics.
+But, Iola, we have drifted far away from the question. No one has a
+right to interfere with our marriage if we do not infringe on the rights
+of others."
+
+"Doctor," she replied, gently, "I feel that our paths must diverge. My
+life-work is planned. I intend spending my future among the colored
+people of the South."
+
+"My dear friend," he replied, anxiously, "I am afraid that you are
+destined to sad disappointment. When the novelty wears off you will be
+disillusioned, and, I fear, when the time comes that you can no longer
+serve them they will forget your services and remember only your
+failings."
+
+"But, Doctor, they need me; and I am sure when I taught among them they
+were very grateful for my services."
+
+"I think," he replied, "these people are more thankful than grateful."
+
+"I do not think so; and if I did it would not hinder me from doing all
+in my power to help them. I do not expect all the finest traits of
+character to spring from the hot-beds of slavery and caste. What matters
+it if they do forget the singer, so they don't forget the song? No,
+Doctor, I don't think that I could best serve my race by forsaking them
+and marrying you."
+
+"Iola," he exclaimed, passionately, "if you love your race, as you call
+it, work for it, live for it, suffer for it, and, if need be, die for
+it; but don't marry for it. Your education has unfitted you for social
+life among them."
+
+"It was," replied Iola, "through their unrequited toil that I was
+educated, while they were compelled to live in ignorance. I am indebted
+to them for the power I have to serve them. I wish other Southern women
+felt as I do. I think they could do so much to help the colored people
+at their doors if they would look at their opportunities in the light of
+the face of Jesus Christ. Nor am I wholly unselfish in allying myself
+with the colored people. All the rest of my family have done so. My dear
+grandmother is one of the excellent of the earth, and we all love her
+too much to ignore our relationship with her. I did not choose my lot in
+life, and the simplest thing I can do is to accept the situation and do
+the best I can."
+
+"And is this your settled purpose?" he asked, sadly.
+
+"It is, Doctor," she replied, tenderly but firmly. "I see no other. I
+must serve the race which needs me most."
+
+"Perhaps you are right," he replied; "but I cannot help feeling sad that
+our paths, which met so pleasantly, should diverge so painfully. And
+yet, not only the freedmen, but the whole country, need such helpful,
+self-sacrificing teachers as you will prove; and if earnest prayers and
+holy wishes can brighten your path, your lines will fall in the
+pleasantest places."
+
+As he rose to go, sympathy, love, and admiration were blended in the
+parting look he gave her; but he felt it was useless to attempt to
+divert her from her purpose. He knew that for the true reconstruction of
+the country something more was needed than bayonets and bullets, or the
+schemes of selfish politicians or plotting demagogues. He knew that the
+South needed the surrender of the best brain and heart of the country to
+build, above the wastes of war, more stately temples of thought and
+action.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+DR. LATROBE'S MISTAKE.
+
+On the morning previous to their departure for their respective homes,
+Dr. Gresham met Dr. Latrobe in the parlor of the Concordia.
+
+"How," asked Dr. Gresham, "did you like Dr. Latimer's paper?"
+
+"Very much, indeed. It was excellent. He is a very talented young man.
+He sits next to me at lunch and I have conversed with him several times.
+He is very genial and attractive, only he seems to be rather cranky on
+the negro question. I hope if he comes South that he will not make the
+mistake of mixing up with the negroes. It would be throwing away his
+influence and ruining his prospects. He seems to be well versed in
+science and literature and would make a very delightful accession to our
+social life."
+
+"I think," replied Dr. Gresham, "that he is an honor to our profession.
+He is one of the finest specimens of our young manhood."
+
+Just then Dr. Latimer entered the room. Dr. Latrobe arose and, greeting
+him cordially, said: "I was delighted with your paper; it was full of
+thought and suggestion."
+
+"Thank you," answered Dr. Latimer, "it was my aim to make it so."
+
+"And you succeeded admirably," replied Dr. Latrobe. "I could not help
+thinking how much we owe to heredity and environment."
+
+"Yes," said Dr. Gresham. "Continental Europe yearly sends to our shores
+subjects to be developed into citizens. Emancipation has given us
+millions of new citizens, and to them our influence and example should
+be a blessing and not a curse."
+
+"Well," said Dr. Latimer, "I intend to go South, and help those who so
+much need helpers from their own ranks."
+
+"I hope," answered Dr. Latrobe, "that if you go South you will only
+sustain business relations with the negroes, and not commit the folly of
+equalizing yourself with them."
+
+"Why not?" asked Dr. Latimer, steadily looking him in the eye.
+
+"Because in equalizing yourself with them you drag us down; and our
+social customs must be kept intact."
+
+"You have been associating with me at the convention for several days; I
+do not see that the contact has dragged you down, has it?"
+
+"You! What has that got to do with associating with niggers?" asked Dr.
+Latrobe, curtly.
+
+"The blood of that race is coursing through my veins. I am one of them,"
+replied Dr. Latimer, proudly raising his head.
+
+"You!" exclaimed Dr. Latrobe, with an air of profound astonishment and
+crimsoning face.
+
+"Yes;" interposed Dr. Gresham, laughing heartily at Dr. Latrobe's
+discomfiture. "He belongs to that negro race both by blood and choice.
+His father's mother made overtures to receive him as her grandson and
+heir, but he has nobly refused to forsake his mother's people and has
+cast his lot with them."
+
+"And I," said Dr. Latimer, "would have despised myself if I had done
+otherwise."
+
+"Well, well," said Dr. Latrobe, rising, "I was never so deceived before.
+Good morning!"
+
+Dr. Latrobe had thought he was clear-sighted enough to detect the
+presence of negro blood when all physical traces had disappeared. But he
+had associated with Dr. Latimer for several days, and admired his
+talent, without suspecting for one moment his racial connection. He
+could not help feeling a sense of vexation at the signal mistake he had
+made.
+
+Dr. Frank Latimer was the natural grandson of a Southern lady, in whose
+family his mother had been a slave. The blood of a proud aristocratic
+ancestry was flowing through his veins, and generations of blood
+admixture had effaced all trace of his negro lineage. His complexion was
+blonde, his eye bright and piercing, his lips firm and well moulded; his
+manner very affable; his intellect active and well stored with
+information. He was a man capable of winning in life through his rich
+gifts of inheritance and acquirements. When freedom came, his mother,
+like Hagar of old, went out into the wide world to seek a living for
+herself and child. Through years of poverty she labored to educate her
+child, and saw the glad fruition of her hopes when her son graduated as
+an M.D. from the University of P----.
+
+After his graduation he met his father's mother, who recognized him by
+his resemblance to her dear, departed son. All the mother love in her
+lonely heart awoke, and she was willing to overlook "the missing link of
+matrimony," and adopt him as her heir, if he would ignore his identity
+with the colored race.
+
+Before him loomed all the possibilities which only birth and blood can
+give a white man in our Democratic country. But he was a man of too much
+sterling worth of character to be willing to forsake his mother's race
+for the richest advantages his grandmother could bestow.
+
+Dr. Gresham had met Dr. Latimer at the beginning of the convention, and
+had been attracted to him by his frank and genial manner. One morning,
+when conversing with him, Dr. Gresham had learned some of the salient
+points of his history, which, instead of repelling him, had only
+deepened his admiration for the young doctor. He was much amused when he
+saw the pleasant acquaintanceship between him and Dr. Latrobe, but they
+agreed to be silent about his racial connection until the time came when
+they were ready to divulge it; and they were hugely delighted at his
+signal blunder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+VISITORS FROM THE SOUTH.
+
+"Mamma is not well," said Iola to Robert. "I spoke to her about sending
+for a doctor, but she objected and I did not insist."
+
+"I will ask Dr. Latimer, whom I met at the Concordia, to step in. He is
+a splendid young fellow. I wish we had thousands like him."
+
+In the evening the doctor called. Without appearing to make a
+professional visit he engaged Marie in conversation, watched her
+carefully, and came to the conclusion that her failing health proceeded
+more from mental than physical causes.
+
+"I am so uneasy about Harry," said Mrs. Leroy. "He is so fearless and
+outspoken. I do wish the attention of the whole nation could be turned
+to the cruel barbarisms which are a national disgrace. I think the term
+'bloody shirt' is one of the most heartless phrases ever invented to
+divert attention from cruel wrongs and dreadful outrages."
+
+Just then Iola came in and was introduced by her uncle to Dr. Latimer,
+to whom the introduction was a sudden and unexpected pleasure.
+
+After an interchange of courtesies, Marie resumed the conversation,
+saying: "Harry wrote me only last week that a young friend of his had
+lost his situation because he refused to have his pupils strew flowers
+on the streets through which Jefferson Davis was to pass."
+
+"I think," said Dr. Latimer, indignantly, "that the Israelites had just
+as much right to scatter flowers over the bodies of the Egyptians, when
+the waves threw back their corpses on the shores of the Red Sea, as
+these children had to strew the path of Jefferson Davis with flowers. We
+want our boys to grow up manly citizens, and not cringing sycophants.
+When do you expect your son, Mrs. Leroy?"
+
+"Some time next week," answered Marie.
+
+"And his presence will do you more good than all the medicine in my
+chest."
+
+"I hope, Doctor," said Mrs. Leroy, "that we will not lose sight of you,
+now that your professional visit is ended; for I believe your visit was
+the result of a conspiracy between Iola and her uncle."
+
+Dr. Latimer laughed, as he answered, "Ah, Mrs. Leroy, I see you have
+found us all out."
+
+"Oh, Doctor," exclaimed Iola, with pleasing excitement, "there is a
+young lady coming here to visit me next week. Her name is Miss Lucille
+Delany, and she is my ideal woman. She is grand, brave, intellectual,
+and religious."
+
+"Is that so? She would make some man an excellent wife," replied Dr.
+Latimer.
+
+"Now isn't that perfectly manlike," answered Iola, smiling. "Mamma, what
+do you think of that? Did any of you gentlemen ever see a young woman of
+much ability that you did not look upon as a flotsam all adrift until
+some man had appropriated her?"
+
+"I think, Miss Leroy, that the world's work, if shared, is better done
+than when it is performed alone. Don't you think your life-work will be
+better done if some one shares it with you?" asked Dr. Latimer, slowly,
+and with a smile in his eyes.
+
+"That would depend on the person who shared it," said Iola, faintly
+blushing.
+
+"Here," said Robert, a few evenings after this conversation, as he
+handed Iola a couple of letters, "is something which will please you."
+
+Iola took the letters, and, after reading one of them, said: "Miss
+Delany and Harry will be here on Wednesday; and this one is an
+invitation which also adds to my enjoyment."
+
+"What is it?" asked Marie; "an invitation to a hop or a german?"
+
+"No; but something which I value far more. We are all invited to Mr.
+Stillman's to a _conversazione_."
+
+"What is the object?"
+
+"His object is to gather some of the thinkers and leaders of the race to
+consult on subjects of vital interest to our welfare. He has invited Dr.
+Latimer, Professor Gradnor, of North Carolina, Mr. Forest, of New York,
+Hon. Dugdale, Revs. Carmicle, Cantnor, Tunster, Professor Langhorne, of
+Georgia, and a few ladies, Mrs. Watson, Miss Brown, and others."
+
+"I am glad that it is neither a hop nor a german," said Iola, "but
+something for which I have been longing."
+
+"Why, Iola," asked Robert, "don't you believe in young people having a
+good time?"
+
+"Oh, yes," answered Iola, seriously, "I believe in young people having
+amusements and recreations; but the times are too serious for us to
+attempt to make our lives a long holiday."
+
+"Well, Iola," answered Robert, "this is the first holiday we have had
+in two hundred and fifty years, and you shouldn't be too exacting."
+
+"Yes," replied Marie, "human beings naturally crave enjoyment, and if
+not furnished with good amusements they are apt to gravitate to low
+pleasures."
+
+"Some one," said Robert, "has said that the Indian belongs to an old
+race and looks gloomily back to the past, and that the negro belongs to
+a young race and looks hopefully towards the future."
+
+"If that be so," replied Marie, "our race-life corresponds more to the
+follies of youth than the faults of maturer years."
+
+On Dr. Latimer's next visit he was much pleased to see a great change in
+Marie's appearance. Her eye had grown brighter, her step more elastic,
+and the anxiety had faded from her face. Harry had arrived, and with him
+came Miss Delany.
+
+"Good evening, Dr. Latimer," said Iola, cheerily, as she entered the
+room with Miss Lucille Delany. "This is my friend, Miss Delany, from
+Georgia. Were she not present I would say she is one of the grandest
+women in America."
+
+"I am very much pleased to meet you," said Dr. Latimer, cordially; "I
+have heard Miss Leroy speak of you. We were expecting you," he added,
+with a smile.
+
+Just then Harry entered the room, and Iola presented him to Dr. Latimer,
+saying, "This is my brother, about whom mamma was so anxious."
+
+"Had you a pleasant journey?" asked Dr. Latimer, after the first
+greetings were over.
+
+"Not especially," answered Miss Delany. "Southern roads are not always
+very pleasant to travel. When Mr. Leroy entered the cars at A----, where
+he was known, had he taken his seat among the white people he would have
+been remanded to the colored."
+
+"But after awhile," said Harry, "as Miss Delany and myself were sitting
+together, laughing and chatting, a colored man entered the car, and,
+mistaking me for a white man, asked the conductor to have me removed,
+and I had to insist that I was colored in order to be permitted to
+remain. It would be ludicrous, if it were not vexatious, to be too white
+to be black, and too black to be white."
+
+"Caste plays such fantastic tricks in this country," said Dr. Latimer.
+
+"I tell Mr. Leroy," said Miss Delany, "that when he returns he must put
+a label on himself, saying, 'I am a colored man,' to prevent annoyance."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.
+
+On the following Friday evening, Mr. Stillman's pleasant, spacious
+parlors were filled to overflowing with a select company of earnest men
+and women deeply interested in the welfare of the race.
+
+Bishop Tunster had prepared a paper on "Negro Emigration." Dr. Latimer
+opened the discussion by speaking favorably of some of the salient
+points, but said:--
+
+"I do not believe self-exilement is the true remedy for the wrongs of
+the negro. Where should he go if he left this country?"
+
+"Go to Africa," replied Bishop Tunster, in his bluff, hearty tones. "I
+believe that Africa is to be redeemed to civilization, and that the
+negro is to be gathered into the family of nations and recognized as a
+man and a brother."
+
+"Go to Africa?" repeated Professor Langhorne, of Georgia. "Does the
+United States own one foot of African soil? And have we not been
+investing our blood in the country for ages?"
+
+"I am in favor of missionary efforts," said Professor Gradnor, of North
+Carolina, "for the redemption of Africa, but I see no reason for
+expatriating ourselves because some persons do not admire the color of
+our skins."
+
+"I do not believe," said Mr. Stillman, "in emptying on the shores of
+Africa a horde of ignorant, poverty-stricken people, as missionaries of
+civilization or Christianity. And while I am in favor of missionary
+efforts, there is need here for the best heart and brain to work in
+unison for justice and righteousness."
+
+"America," said Miss Delany, "is the best field for human development.
+God has not heaped up our mountains with such grandeur, flooded our
+rivers with such majesty, crowned our valleys with such fertility,
+enriched our mines with such wealth, that they should only minister to
+grasping greed and sensuous enjoyment."
+
+"Climate, soil, and physical environments," said Professor Gradnor,
+"have much to do with shaping national characteristics. If in Africa,
+under a tropical sun, the negro has lagged behind other races in the
+march of civilization, at least for once in his history he has, in this
+country, the privilege of using climatic advantages and developing under
+new conditions."
+
+"Yes," replied Dr. Latimer, "and I do not wish our people to become
+restless and unsettled before they have tried one generation of
+freedom."
+
+"I am always glad," said Mr. Forest, a tall, distinguished-looking
+gentleman from New York, "when I hear of people who are ill treated in
+one section of the country emigrating to another. Men who are deaf to
+the claims of mercy, and oblivious to the demands of justice, can feel
+when money is slipping from their pockets."
+
+"The negro," said Hon. Dugdale, "does not present to my mind the picture
+of an effete and exhausted people, destined to die out before a stronger
+race. Gilbert Haven once saw a statue which suggested this thought, 'I
+am black, but comely; the sun has looked down upon me, but I will teach
+you who despise me to feel that I am your superior.' The men who are
+acquiring property and building up homes in the South show us what
+energy and determination may do even in that part of the country. I
+believe such men can do more to conquer prejudice than if they spent all
+their lives in shouting for their rights and ignoring their duties. No!
+as there are millions of us in this country, I think it best to settle
+down and work out our own salvation here."
+
+"How many of us to-day," asked Professor Langhorne, "would be teaching
+in the South, if every field of labor in the North was as accessible to
+us as to the whites? It has been estimated that a million young white
+men have left the South since the war, and, had our chances been equal
+to theirs, would we have been any more willing to stay in the South with
+those who need us than they? But this prejudice, by impacting us
+together, gives us a common cause and brings our intellect in contact
+with the less favored of our race."
+
+"I do not believe," said Miss Delany, "that the Southern white people
+themselves desire any wholesale exodus of the colored from their labor
+fields. It would be suicidal to attempt their expatriation."
+
+"History," said Professor Langhorne, "tells that Spain was once the
+place where barbarian Europe came to light her lamp. Seven hundred years
+before there was a public lamp in London you might have gone through the
+streets of Cordova amid ten miles of lighted lamps, and stood there on
+solidly paved land, when hundreds of years afterwards, in Paris, on a
+rainy day you would have sunk to your ankles in the mud. But she who
+bore the name of the 'Terror of Nations,' and the 'Queen of the Ocean,'
+was not strong enough to dash herself against God's law of retribution
+and escape unscathed. She inaugurated a crusade of horror against a
+million of her best laborers and artisans. Vainly she expected the
+blessing of God to crown her work of violence. Instead of seeing the
+fruition of her hopes in the increased prosperity of her land,
+depression and paralysis settled on her trade and business. A fearful
+blow was struck at her agriculture; decay settled on her manufactories;
+money became too scarce to pay the necessary expenses of the king's
+exchequer; and that once mighty empire became a fallen kingdom, pierced
+by her crimes and dragged down by her transgressions."
+
+"We did not," said Iola, "place the bounds of our habitation. And I
+believe we are to be fixtures in this country. But beyond the shadows I
+see the coruscation of a brighter day; and we can help usher it in, not
+by answering hate with hate, or giving scorn for scorn, but by striving
+to be more generous, noble, and just. It seems as if all creation
+travels to respond to the song of the Herald angels, 'Peace on earth,
+good-will toward men.'"
+
+The next paper was on "Patriotism," by Rev. Cantnor. It was a paper in
+which the white man was extolled as the master race, and spoke as if it
+were a privilege for the colored man to be linked to his destiny and to
+live beneath the shadow of his power. He asserted that the white race of
+this country is the broadest, most Christian, and humane of that branch
+of the human family.
+
+Dr. Latimer took exception to his position. "Law," he said, "is the
+pivot on which the whole universe turns; and obedience to law is the
+gauge by which a nation's strength or weakness is tried. We have had two
+evils by which our obedience to law has been tested--slavery and the
+liquor traffic. How have we dealt with them both? We have been weighed
+in the balance and found wanting. Millions of slaves and serfs have been
+liberated during this century, but not even in semi-barbaric Russia,
+heathen Japan, or Catholic Spain has slavery been abolished through such
+a fearful conflict as it was in the United States. The liquor traffic
+still sends its floods of ruin and shame to the habitations of men, and
+no political party has been found with enough moral power and numerical
+strength to stay the tide of death."
+
+"I think," said Professor Gradnor, "that what our country needs is truth
+more than flattery. I do not think that our moral life keeps pace with
+our mental development and material progress. I know of no civilized
+country on the globe, Catholic, Protestant, or Mohammedan, where life is
+less secure than it is in the South. Nearly eighteen hundred years ago
+the life of a Roman citizen in Palestine was in danger from mob
+violence. That pagan government threw around him a wall of living clay,
+consisting of four hundred and seventy men, when more than forty Jews
+had bound themselves with an oath that they would neither eat nor drink
+until they had taken the life of the Apostle Paul. Does not true
+patriotism demand that citizenship should be as much protected in
+Christian America as it was in heathen Rome?"
+
+"I would have our people," said Miss Delany, "more interested in
+politics. Instead of forgetting the past, I would have them hold in
+everlasting remembrance our great deliverance. Hitherto we have never
+had a country with tender, precious memories to fill our eyes with
+tears, or glad reminiscences to thrill our hearts with pride and joy. We
+have been aliens and outcasts in the land of our birth. But I want my
+pupils to do all in their power to make this country worthy of their
+deepest devotion and loftiest patriotism. I want them to feel that its
+glory is their glory, its dishonor their shame."
+
+"Our esteemed friend, Mrs. Watson," said Iola, "sends regrets that she
+cannot come, but has kindly favored us with a poem, called the "Rallying
+Cry." In her letter she says that, although she is no longer young, she
+feels that in the conflict for the right there's room for young as well
+as old. She hopes that we will here unite the enthusiasm of youth with
+the experience of age, and that we will have a pleasant and profitable
+conference. Is it your pleasure that the poem be read at this stage of
+our proceedings, or later on?"
+
+"Let us have it now," answered Harry, "and I move that Miss Delany be
+chosen to lend to the poem the charm of her voice."
+
+"I second the motion," said Iola, smiling, and handing the poem to Miss
+Delany.
+
+Miss Delany took the poem and read it with fine effect. The spirit of
+the poem had entered her soul.
+
+              A RALLYING CRY.
+
+    Oh, children of the tropics,
+           Amid our pain and wrong
+    Have you no other mission
+           Than music, dance, and song?
+
+    When through the weary ages
+           Our dripping tears still fall,
+    Is this a time to dally
+           With pleasure's silken thrall?
+
+    Go, muffle all your viols;
+           As heroes learn to stand,
+    With faith in God's great justice
+           Nerve every heart and hand.
+
+    Dream not of ease nor pleasure,
+           Nor honor, wealth, nor fame,
+    Till from the dust you've lifted
+           Our long-dishonored name;
+
+    And crowned that name with glory
+           By deeds of holy worth,
+    To shine with light emblazoned,
+           The noblest name on earth.
+
+    Count life a dismal failure,
+           Unblessing and unblest,
+    That seeks 'mid ease inglorious
+           For pleasure or for rest.
+
+    With courage, strength, and valor
+           Your lives and actions brace;
+    Shrink not from toil or hardship,
+           And dangers bravely face.
+
+    Engrave upon your banners,
+           In words of golden light,
+    That honor, truth, and justice
+           Are more than godless might.
+
+    Above earth's pain and sorrow
+           Christ's dying face I see;
+    I hear the cry of anguish:--
+           "Why hast thou forsaken me?"
+
+    In the pallor of that anguish
+           I see the only light,
+    To flood with peace and gladness
+           Earth's sorrow, pain, and night.
+
+    Arrayed in Christly armor
+           'Gainst error, crime, and sin,
+    The victory can't be doubtful,
+           For God is sure to win.
+
+The next paper was by Miss Iola Leroy, on the "Education of Mothers."
+
+"I agree," said Rev. Eustace, of St. Mary's parish, "with the paper. The
+great need of the race is enlightened mothers."
+
+"And enlightened fathers, too," added Miss Delany, quickly. "If there is
+anything I chafe to see it is a strong, hearty man shirking his burdens,
+putting them on the shoulders of his wife, and taking life easy for
+himself."
+
+"I always pity such mothers," interposed Iola, tenderly.
+
+"I think," said Miss Delany, with a flash in her eye and a ring of
+decision in her voice, "that such men ought to be drummed out of town!"
+As she spoke, there was an expression which seemed to say, "And I would
+like to help do it!"
+
+Harry smiled, and gave her a quick glance of admiration.
+
+"I do not think," said Mrs. Stillman, "that we can begin too early to
+teach our boys to be manly and self-respecting, and our girls to be
+useful and self-reliant."
+
+"You know," said Mrs. Leroy, "that after the war we were thrown upon the
+nation a homeless race to be gathered into homes, and a legally
+unmarried race to be taught the sacredness of the marriage relation. We
+must instill into our young people that the true strength of a race
+means purity in women and uprightness in men; who can say, with Sir
+Galahad:--
+
+    'My strength is the strength of ten,
+       Because my heart is pure.'
+
+And where this is wanting neither wealth nor culture can make up the
+deficiency."
+
+"There is a field of Christian endeavor which lies between the
+school-house and the pulpit, which needs the hand of a woman more in
+private than in public," said Miss Delany.
+
+"Yes, I have often felt the need of such work in my own parish. We need
+a union of women with the warmest hearts and clearest brains to help in
+the moral education of the race," said Rev. Eustace.
+
+"Yes," said Iola, "if we would have the prisons empty we must make the
+homes more attractive."
+
+"In civilized society," replied Dr. Latimer, "there must be restraint
+either within or without. If parents fail to teach restraint within,
+society has her check-reins without in the form of chain-gangs, prisons,
+and the gallows."
+
+The closing paper was on the "Moral Progress of the Race," by Hon.
+Dugdale. He said: "The moral progress of the race was not all he could
+desire, yet he could not help feeling that, compared with other races,
+the outlook was not hopeless. I am so sorry to see, however, that in
+some States there is an undue proportion of colored people in prisons."
+
+"I think," answered Professor Langhorne, of Georgia, "that this is
+owing to a partial administration of law in meting out punishment to
+colored offenders. I know red-handed murderers who walk in this Republic
+unwhipped of justice, and I have seen a colored woman sentenced to
+prison for weeks for stealing twenty-five cents. I knew a colored girl
+who was executed for murder when only a child in years. And it was
+through the intervention of a friend of mine, one of the bravest young
+men of the South, that a boy of fifteen was saved from the gallows."
+
+"When I look," said Mr. Forest, "at the slow growth of modern
+civilization--the ages which have been consumed in reaching our present
+altitude, and see how we have outgrown slavery, feudalism, and religious
+persecutions, I cannot despair of the future of the race."
+
+"Just now," said Dr. Latimer, "we have the fearful grinding and friction
+which comes in the course of an adjustment of the new machinery of
+freedom in the old ruts of slavery. But I am optimistic enough to
+believe that there will yet be a far higher and better Christian
+civilization than our country has ever known."
+
+"And in that civilization I believe the negro is to be an important
+factor," said Rev. Cantnor.
+
+"I believe it also," said Miss Delany, hopefully, "and this thought has
+been a blessed inspiration to my life. When I come in contact with
+Christless prejudices, I feel that my life is too much a part of the
+Divine plan, and invested with too much intrinsic worth, for me to be
+the least humiliated by indignities that beggarly souls can inflict. I
+feel more pitiful than resentful to those who do not know how much they
+miss by living mean, ignoble lives."
+
+"My heart," said Iola, "is full of hope for the future. Pain and
+suffering are the crucibles out of which come gold more fine than the
+pavements of heaven, and gems more precious than the foundations of the
+Holy City."
+
+"If," said Mrs. Leroy, "pain and suffering are factors in human
+development, surely we have not been counted too worthless to suffer."
+
+"And is there," continued Iola, "a path which we have trodden in this
+country, unless it be the path of sin, into which Jesus Christ has not
+put His feet and left it luminous with the light of His steps? Has the
+negro been poor and homeless? The birds of the air had nests and the
+foxes had holes, but the Son of man had not where to lay His head. Has
+our name been a synonym for contempt? 'He shall be called a Nazarene.'
+Have we been despised and trodden under foot? Christ was despised and
+rejected of men. Have we been ignorant and unlearned? It was said of
+Jesus Christ, 'How knoweth this man letters, never having learned?' Have
+we been beaten and bruised in the prison-house of bondage? 'They took
+Jesus and scourged Him.' Have we been slaughtered, our bones scattered
+at the graves' mouth? He was spit upon by the mob, smitten and mocked by
+the rabble, and died as died Rome's meanest criminal slave. To-day that
+cross of shame is a throne of power. Those robes of scorn have changed
+to habiliments of light, and that crown of mockery to a diadem of glory.
+And never, while the agony of Gethsemane and the sufferings of Calvary
+have their hold upon my heart, will I recognize any religion as His
+which despises the least of His brethren."
+
+As Iola finished, there was a ring of triumph in her voice, as if she
+were reviewing a path she had trodden with bleeding feet, and seen it
+change to lines of living light. Her soul seemed to be flashing through
+the rare loveliness of her face and etherealizing its beauty.
+
+Every one was spell-bound. Dr. Latimer was entranced, and, turning to
+Hon. Dugdale, said, in a low voice and with deep-drawn breath, "She is
+angelic!"
+
+Hon. Dugdale turned, gave a questioning look, then replied, "She is
+strangely beautiful! Do you know her?"
+
+"Yes; I have met her several times. I accompanied her here to-night. The
+tones of her voice are like benedictions of peace; her words a call to
+higher service and nobler life."
+
+Just then Rev. Carmicle was announced. He had been on a Southern tour,
+and had just returned.
+
+"Oh, Doctor," exclaimed Mrs. Stillman, "I am delighted to see you. We
+were about to adjourn, but we will postpone action to hear from you."
+
+"Thank you," replied Rev. Carmicle. "I have not the cue to the meeting,
+and will listen while I take breath."
+
+"Pardon me," answered Mrs. Stillman. "I should have been more thoughtful
+than to press so welcome a guest into service before I had given him
+time for rest and refreshment; but if the courtesy failed on my lips it
+did not fail in my heart. I wanted our young folks to see one of our
+thinkers who had won distinction before the war."
+
+"My dear friend," said Rev. Carmicle, smiling, "some of these young
+folks will look on me as a back number. You know the cry has already
+gone forth, 'Young men to the front.'"
+
+"But we need old men for counsel," interposed Mr. Forest, of New York.
+
+"Of course," said Rev. Carmicle, "we older men would rather retire
+gracefully than be relegated or hustled to a back seat. But I am pleased
+to see doors open to you which were closed to us, and opportunities
+which were denied us embraced by you."
+
+"How," asked Hon. Dugdale, "do you feel in reference to our people's
+condition in the South?"
+
+"Very hopeful, although at times I cannot help feeling anxious about
+their future. I was delighted with my visits to various institutions of
+learning, and surprised at the desire manifested among the young people
+to obtain an education. Where toil-worn mothers bent beneath their heavy
+burdens their more favored daughters are enjoying the privileges of
+education. Young people are making recitations in Greek and Latin where
+it was once a crime to teach their parents to read. I also became
+acquainted with colored professors and presidents of colleges. Saw young
+ladies who had graduated as doctors. Comfortable homes have succeeded
+old cabins of slavery. Vast crops have been raised by free labor. I read
+with interest and pleasure a number of papers edited by colored men. I
+saw it estimated that two millions of our people had learned to read,
+and I feel deeply grateful to the people who have supplied us with
+teachers who have stood their ground so nobly among our people."
+
+"But," asked Mr. Forest, "you expressed fears about the future of our
+race. From whence do your fears arise?"
+
+"From the unfortunate conditions which slavery has entailed upon that
+section of our country. I dread the results of that racial feeling which
+ever and anon breaks out into restlessness and crime. Also, I am
+concerned about the lack of home training for those for whom the
+discipline of the plantation has been exchanged for the penalties of
+prisons and chain-gangs. I am sorry to see numbers of our young men
+growing away from the influence of the church and drifting into prisons.
+I also fear that in some sections, as colored men increase in wealth and
+intelligence, there will be an increase of race rivalry and jealousy. It
+is said that savages, by putting their ears to the ground, can hear a
+far-off tread. So, to-day, I fear that there are savage elements in our
+civilization which hear the advancing tread of the negro and would
+retard his coming. It is the incarnation of these elements that I dread.
+It is their elimination I do so earnestly desire. Whether it be outgrown
+or not is our unsolved problem. Time alone will tell whether or not the
+virus of slavery and injustice has too fully permeated our Southern
+civilization for a complete recovery. Nations, honey-combed by vice,
+have fallen beneath the weight of their iniquities. Justice is always
+uncompromising in its claims and inexorable in its demands. The laws of
+the universe are never repealed to accommodate our follies."
+
+"Surely," said Bishop Tunster, "the negro has a higher mission than that
+of aimlessly drifting through life and patiently waiting for death."
+
+"We may not," answered Rev. Carmicle, "have the same dash, courage, and
+aggressiveness of other races, accustomed to struggle, achievement, and
+dominion, but surely the world needs something better than the results
+of arrogance, aggressiveness, and indomitable power. For the evils of
+society there are no solvents as potent as love and justice, and our
+greatest need is not more wealth and learning, but a religion replete
+with life and glowing with love. Let this be the impelling force in the
+race and it cannot fail to rise in the scale of character and
+condition."
+
+"And," said Dr. Latimer, "instead of narrowing our sympathies to mere
+racial questions, let us broaden them to humanity's wider issues."
+
+"Let us," replied Rev. Carmicle, "pass it along the lines, that to be
+willfully ignorant is to be shamefully criminal. Let us teach our people
+not to love pleasure or to fear death, but to learn the true value of
+life, and to do their part to eliminate the paganism of caste from our
+holy religion and the lawlessness of savagery from our civilization."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"How did you enjoy the evening, Marie?" asked Robert, as they walked
+homeward.
+
+"I was interested and deeply pleased," answered Marie.
+
+"I," said Robert, "was thinking of the wonderful changes that
+have come to us since the war. When I sat in those well-lighted,
+beautifully-furnished rooms, I was thinking of the meetings we used to
+have in by-gone days. How we used to go by stealth into lonely woods and
+gloomy swamps, to tell of our hopes and fears, sorrows and trials. I
+hope that we will have many more of these gatherings. Let us have the
+next one here."
+
+"I am sure," said Marie, "I would gladly welcome such a conference at
+any time. I think such meetings would be so helpful to our young
+people."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+DAWNING AFFECTIONS.
+
+"Doctor," said Iola, as they walked home from the _conversazione_, "I
+wish I could do something more for our people than I am doing. I taught
+in the South till failing health compelled me to change my employment.
+But, now that I am well and strong, I would like to do something of
+lasting service for the race."
+
+"Why not," asked Dr. Latimer, "write a good, strong book which would be
+helpful to them? I think there is an amount of dormant talent among us,
+and a large field from which to gather materials for such a book."
+
+"I would do it, willingly, if I could; but one needs both leisure and
+money to make a successful book. There is material among us for the
+broadest comedies and the deepest tragedies, but, besides money and
+leisure, it needs patience, perseverance, courage, and the hand of an
+artist to weave it into the literature of the country."
+
+"Miss Leroy, you have a large and rich experience; you possess a vivid
+imagination and glowing fancy. Write, out of the fullness of your heart,
+a book to inspire men and women with a deeper sense of justice and
+humanity."
+
+"Doctor," replied Iola, "I would do it if I could, not for the money it
+might bring, but for the good it might do. But who believes any good can
+come out of the black Nazareth?"
+
+"Miss Leroy, out of the race must come its own thinkers and writers.
+Authors belonging to the white race have written good racial books, for
+which I am deeply grateful, but it seems to be almost impossible for a
+white man to put himself completely in our place. No man can feel the
+iron which enters another man's soul."
+
+"Well, Doctor, when I write a book I shall take you for the hero of my
+story."
+
+"Why, what have I done," asked Dr. Latimer, in a surprised tone, "that
+you should impale me on your pen?"
+
+"You have done nobly," answered Iola, "in refusing your grandmother's
+offer."
+
+"I only did my duty," he modestly replied.
+
+"But," said Iola, "when others are trying to slip out from the race and
+pass into the white basis, I cannot help admiring one who acts as if he
+felt that the weaker the race is the closer he would cling to it."
+
+"My mother," replied Dr. Latimer, "faithful and true, belongs to that
+race. Where else should I be? But I know a young lady who could have
+cast her lot with the favored race, yet chose to take her place with the
+freed people, as their teacher, friend, and adviser. This young lady was
+alone in the world. She had been fearfully wronged, and to her stricken
+heart came a brilliant offer of love, home, and social position. But she
+bound her heart to the mast of duty, closed her ears to the syren song,
+and could not be lured from her purpose."
+
+A startled look stole over Iola's face, and, lifting her eyes to his,
+she faltered:--
+
+"Do you know her?"
+
+"Yes, I know her and admire her; and she ought to be made the subject
+of a soul-inspiring story. Do you know of whom I speak?"
+
+"How should I, Doctor? I am sure you have not made me your confidante,"
+she responded, demurely; then she quickly turned and tripped up the
+steps of her home, which she had just reached.
+
+After this conversation Dr. Latimer became a frequent visitor at Iola's
+home, and a firm friend of her brother. Harry was at that age when, for
+the young and inexperienced, vice puts on her fairest guise and most
+seductive smiles. Dr. Latimer's wider knowledge and larger experience
+made his friendship for Harry very valuable, and the service he rendered
+him made him a favorite and ever-welcome guest in the family.
+
+"Are you all alone," asked Robert, one night, as he entered the cosy
+little parlor where Iola sat reading. "Where are the rest of the folks?"
+
+"Mamma and grandma have gone to bed," answered Iola. "Harry and Lucille
+are at the concert. They are passionately fond of music, and find
+facilities here that they do not have in the South. They wouldn't go to
+hear a seraph where they must take a negro seat. I was too tired to go.
+Besides, 'two's company and three's a crowd,'" she added, significantly.
+
+"I reckon you struck the nail on the head that time," said Robert,
+laughing. "But you have not been alone all the time. Just as I reached
+the corner I saw Dr. Latimer leaving the door. I see he still continues
+his visits. Who is his patient now?"
+
+"Oh, Uncle Robert," said Iola, smiling and flushing, "he is out with
+Harry and Lucille part of the time, and drops in now and then to see us
+all."
+
+"Well," said Robert, "I suppose the case is now an affair of the heart.
+But I cannot blame him for it," he added, looking fondly on the
+beautiful face of his niece, which sorrow had touched only to chisel
+into more loveliness. "How do you like him?"
+
+"I must have within me," answered Iola, with unaffected truthfulness, "a
+large amount of hero worship. The characters of the Old Testament I most
+admire are Moses and Nehemiah. They were willing to put aside their own
+advantages for their race and country. Dr. Latimer comes up to my ideal
+of a high, heroic manhood."
+
+"I think," answered Robert, smiling archly, "he would be delighted to
+hear your opinion of him."
+
+"I tell him," continued Iola, "that he belongs to the days of chivalry.
+But he smiles and says, 'he only belongs to the days of hard-pan
+service.'"
+
+"Some one," said Robert, "was saying to-day that he stood in his own
+light when he refused his grandmother's offer to receive him as her
+son."
+
+"I think," said Iola, "it was the grandest hour of his life when he made
+that decision. I have admired him ever since I heard his story."
+
+"But, Iola, think of the advantages he set aside. It was no sacrifice
+for me to remain colored, with my lack of education and race sympathies,
+but Dr. Latimer had doors open to him as a white man which are forever
+closed to a colored man. To be born white in this country is to be born
+to an inheritance of privileges, to hold in your hands the keys that
+open before you the doors of every occupation, advantage, opportunity,
+and achievement."
+
+"I know that, uncle," answered Iola; "but even these advantages are too
+dearly bought if they mean loss of honor, true manliness, and self
+respect. He could not have retained these had he ignored his mother and
+lived under a veil of concealment, constantly haunted by a dread of
+detection. The gain would not have been worth the cost. It were better
+that he should walk the ruggedest paths of life a true man than tread
+the softest carpets a moral cripple."
+
+"I am afraid," said Robert, laying his hand caressingly upon her head,
+"that we are destined to lose the light of our home."
+
+"Oh, uncle, how you talk! I never dreamed of what you are thinking,"
+answered Iola, half reproachfully.
+
+"And how," asked Robert, "do you know what I am thinking about?"
+
+"My dear uncle, I'm not blind."
+
+"Neither am I," replied Robert, significantly, as he left the room.
+
+Iola's admiration for Dr. Latimer was not a one-sided affair. Day after
+day she was filling a larger place in his heart. The touch of her hand
+thrilled him with emotion. Her lightest words were an entrancing melody
+to his ear. Her noblest sentiments found a response in his heart. In
+their desire to help the race their hearts beat in loving unison. One
+grand and noble purpose was giving tone and color to their lives and
+strengthening the bonds of affection between them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+WOOING AND WEDDING.
+
+Harry's vacation had been very pleasant. Miss Delany, with her fine
+conversational powers and ready wit, had added much to his enjoyment.
+Robert had given his mother the pleasantest room in the house, and in
+the evening the family would gather around her, tell her the news of the
+day, read to her from the Bible, join with her in thanksgiving for
+mercies received and in prayer for protection through the night. Harry
+was very grateful to Dr. Latimer for the kindly interest he had shown in
+accompanying Miss Delany and himself to places of interest and
+amusement. He was grateful, too, that in the city of P---- doors were
+open to them which were barred against them in the South.
+
+The bright, beautiful days of summer were gliding into autumn, with its
+glorious wealth of foliage, and the time was approaching for the
+departure of Harry and Miss Delany to their respective schools, when Dr.
+Latimer received several letters from North Carolina, urging him to come
+South, as physicians were greatly needed there. Although his practice
+was lucrative in the city of P----, he resolved he would go where his
+services were most needed.
+
+A few evenings before he started he called at the house, and made an
+engagement to drive Iola to the park.
+
+At the time appointed he drove up to the door in his fine equipage.
+Iola stepped gracefully in and sat quietly by his side to enjoy the
+loveliness of the scenery and the gorgeous grandeur of the setting sun.
+
+"I expect to go South," said Dr. Latimer, as he drove slowly along.
+
+"Ah, indeed," said Iola, assuming an air of interest, while a shadow
+flitted over her face. "Where do you expect to pitch your tent?"
+
+"In the city of C----, North Carolina," he answered.
+
+"Oh, I wish," she exclaimed, "that you were going to Georgia, where you
+could take care of that high-spirited brother of mine."
+
+"I suppose if he were to hear you he would laugh, and say that he could
+take care of himself. But I know a better plan than that."
+
+"What is it?" asked Iola, innocently.
+
+"That you will commit yourself, instead of your brother, to my care."
+
+"Oh, dear," replied Iola, drawing a long breath. "What would mamma say?"
+
+"That she would willingly resign you, I hope."
+
+"And what would grandma and Uncle Robert say?" again asked Iola.
+
+"That they would cheerfully acquiesce. Now, what would I say if they all
+consent?"
+
+"I don't know," modestly responded Iola.
+
+"Well," replied Dr. Latimer, "I would say:--
+
+    "Could deeds my love discover,
+          Could valor gain thy charms,
+     To prove myself thy lover
+          I'd face a world in arms."
+
+"And prove a good soldier," added Iola, smiling, "when there is no
+battle to fight."
+
+"Iola, I am in earnest," said Dr. Latimer, passionately. "In the work to
+which I am devoted every burden will be lighter, every path smoother, if
+brightened and blessed with your companionship."
+
+A sober expression swept over Iola's face, and, dropping her eyes, she
+said: "I must have time to think."
+
+Quietly they rode along the river bank until Dr. Latimer broke the
+silence by saying:--
+
+"Miss Iola, I think that you brood too much over the condition of our
+people."
+
+"Perhaps I do," she replied, "but they never burn a man in the South
+that they do not kindle a fire around my soul."
+
+"I am afraid," replied Dr. Latimer, "that you will grow morbid and
+nervous. Most of our people take life easily--why shouldn't you?"
+
+"Because," she answered, "I can see breakers ahead which they do not."
+
+"Oh, give yourself no uneasiness. They will catch the fret and fever of
+the nineteenth century soon enough. I have heard several of our
+ministers say that it is chiefly men of disreputable characters who are
+made the subjects of violence and lynch-law."
+
+"Suppose it is so," responded Iola, feelingly. "If these men believe in
+eternal punishment they ought to feel a greater concern for the wretched
+sinner who is hurried out of time with all his sins upon his head, than
+for the godly man who passes through violence to endless rest."
+
+"That is true; and I am not counseling you to be selfish; but, Miss
+Iola, had you not better look out for yourself?"
+
+"Thank you, Doctor, I am feeling quite well."
+
+"I know it, but your devotion to study and work is too intense," he
+replied.
+
+"I am preparing to teach, and must spend my leisure time in study. Mr.
+Cloten is an excellent employer, and treats his employés as if they had
+hearts as well as hands. But to be an expert accountant is not the best
+use to which I can put my life."
+
+"As a teacher you will need strong health and calm nerves. You had
+better let me prescribe for you. You need," he added, with a merry
+twinkle in his eyes, "change of air, change of scene, and change of
+name."
+
+"Well, Doctor," said Iola, laughing, "that is the newest nostrum out.
+Had you not better apply for a patent?"
+
+"Oh," replied Dr. Latimer, with affected gravity, "you know you must
+have unlimited faith in your physician."
+
+"So you wish me to try the faith cure?" asked Iola, laughing.
+
+"Yes, faith in me," responded Dr. Latimer, seriously.
+
+"Oh, here we are at home!" exclaimed Iola. "This has been a glorious
+evening, Doctor. I am indebted to you for a great pleasure. I am
+extremely grateful."
+
+"You are perfectly welcome," replied Dr. Latimer. "The pleasure has been
+mutual, I assure you."
+
+"Will you not come in?" asked Iola.
+
+Tying his horse, he accompanied Iola into the parlor. Seating himself
+near her, he poured into her ears words eloquent with love and
+tenderness.
+
+"Iola," he said, "I am not an adept in courtly phrases. I am a plain
+man, who believes in love and truth. In asking you to share my lot, I am
+not inviting you to a life of ease and luxury, for year after year I may
+have to struggle to keep the wolf from the door, but your presence would
+make my home one of the brightest spots on earth, and one of the fairest
+types of heaven. Am I presumptuous in hoping that your love will become
+the crowning joy of my life?"
+
+His words were more than a tender strain wooing her to love and
+happiness, they were a clarion call to a life of high and holy worth, a
+call which found a response in her heart. Her hand lay limp in his. She
+did not withdraw it, but, raising her lustrous eyes to his, she softly
+answered: "Frank, I love you."
+
+After he had gone, Iola sat by the window, gazing at the splendid stars,
+her heart quietly throbbing with a delicious sense of joy and love. She
+had admired Dr. Gresham and, had there been no barrier in her way, she
+might have learned to love him; but Dr. Latimer had grown irresistibly
+upon her heart. There were depths in her nature that Dr. Gresham had
+never fathomed; aspirations in her soul with which he had never mingled.
+But as the waves leap up to the strand, so her soul went out to Dr.
+Latimer. Between their lives were no impeding barriers, no inclination
+impelling one way and duty compelling another. Kindred hopes and tastes
+had knit their hearts; grand and noble purposes were lighting up their
+lives; and they esteemed it a blessed privilege to stand on the
+threshold of a new era and labor for those who had passed from the old
+oligarchy of slavery into the new commonwealth of freedom.
+
+On the next evening, Dr. Latimer rang the bell and was answered by
+Harry, who ushered him into the parlor, and then came back to the
+sitting-room, saying, "Iola, Dr. Latimer has called to see you."
+
+"Has he?" answered Iola, a glad light coming into her eyes. "Come,
+Lucille, let us go into the parlor."
+
+"Oh, no," interposed Harry, shrugging his shoulders and catching
+Lucille's hand. "He didn't ask for you. When we went to the concert we
+were told three's a crowd. And I say one good turn deserves another."
+
+"Oh, Harry, you are so full of nonsense. Let Lucille go!" said Iola.
+
+"Indeed I will not. I want to have a good time as well as you," said
+Harry.
+
+"Oh, you're the most nonsensical man I know," interposed Miss Delany.
+Yet she stayed with Harry.
+
+"You're looking very bright and happy," said Dr. Latimer to Iola, as she
+entered.
+
+"My ride in the park was so refreshing! I enjoyed it so much! The day
+was so lovely, the air delicious, the birds sang so sweetly, and the
+sunset was so magnificent."
+
+"I am glad of it. Why, Iola, your home is so happy your heart should be
+as light as a school-girl's."
+
+"Doctor," she replied, "I must be prematurely old. I have scarcely known
+what it is to be light-hearted since my father's death."
+
+"I know it, darling," he answered, seating himself beside her, and
+drawing her to him. "You have been tried in the fire, but are you not
+better for the crucial test?"
+
+"Doctor," she replied, "as we rode along yesterday, mingling with the
+sunshine of the present came the shadows of the past. I was thinking of
+the bright, joyous days of my girlhood, when I defended slavery, and of
+how the cup that I would have pressed to the lips of others was forced
+to my own. Yet, in looking over the mournful past, I would not change
+the Iola of then for the Iola of now."
+
+"Yes," responded Dr. Latimer, musingly,
+
+    "'Darkness shows us worlds of light
+        We never saw by day.'"
+
+"Oh, Doctor, you cannot conceive what it must have been to be hurled
+from a home of love and light into the dark abyss of slavery; to be
+compelled to take your place among a people you have learned to look
+upon as inferiors and social outcasts; to be in the power of men whose
+presence would fill you with horror and loathing, and to know that there
+is no earthly power to protect you from the highest insults which brutal
+cowardice could shower upon you. I am so glad that no other woman of my
+race will suffer as I have done."
+
+The flush deepened on her face, a mournful splendor beamed from her
+beautiful eyes, into which the tears had slowly gathered.
+
+"Darling," he said, his voice vibrating with mingled feelings of
+tenderness and resentment, "you must forget the sad past. You are like a
+tender lamb snatched from the jaws of a hungry wolf, but who still needs
+protecting, loving care. But it must have been terrible," he added, in a
+painful tone.
+
+"It was indeed! For awhile I was like one dazed. I tried to pray, but
+the heavens seemed brass over my head. I was wild with agony, and had I
+not been placed under conditions which roused all the resistance of my
+soul, I would have lost my reason."
+
+"Was it not a mistake to have kept you ignorant of your colored blood?"
+
+"It was the great mistake of my father's life, but dear papa knew
+something of the cruel, crushing power of caste; and he tried to shield
+us from it."
+
+"Yes, yes," replied Dr. Latimer, thoughtfully, "in trying to shield you
+from pain he plunged you into deeper suffering."
+
+"I never blame him, because I know he did it for the best. Had he lived
+he would have taken us to France, where I should have had a life of
+careless ease and pleasure. But now my life has a much grander
+significance than it would have had under such conditions. Fearful as
+the awakening was, it was better than to have slept through life."
+
+"Best for you and best for me," said Dr. Latimer. "There are souls that
+never awaken; but if they miss the deepest pain they also lose the
+highest joy."
+
+Dr. Latimer went South, after his engagement, and through his medical
+skill and agreeable manners became very successful in his practice. In
+the following summer, he built a cosy home for the reception of his
+bride, and came North, where, with Harry and Miss Delany as attendants,
+he was married to Iola, amid a pleasant gathering of friends, by Rev.
+Carmicle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+It was late in the summer when Dr. Latimer and his bride reached their
+home in North Carolina. Over the cottage porch were morning-glories to
+greet the first flushes of the rising day, and roses and jasmines to
+distill their fragrance on the evening air. Aunt Linda, who had been
+apprised of their coming, was patiently awaiting their arrival, and
+Uncle Daniel was pleased to know that "dat sweet young lady who had sich
+putty manners war comin' to lib wid dem."
+
+As soon as they arrived, Aunt Linda rushed up to Iola, folded her in her
+arms, and joyfully exclaimed: "How'dy, honey! I'se so glad you's come. I
+seed it in a vision dat somebody fair war comin' to help us. An' wen I
+yered it war you, I larffed and jist rolled ober, and larffed and jist
+gib up."
+
+"But, Aunt Linda, I am not very fair," replied Mrs. Latimer.
+
+"Well, chile, you's fair to me. How's all yore folks in de up kentry?"
+
+"All well. I expect them down soon to live here."
+
+"What, Har'yet, and Robby, an' yer ma? Oh, dat is too good. I allers
+said Robby had san' in his craw, and war born for good luck. He war a
+mighty nice boy. Har'yet's in clover now. Well, ebery dorg has its day,
+and de cat has Sunday. I allers tole Har'yet ter keep a stiff upper lip;
+dat it war a long road dat had no turn."
+
+Dr. Latimer was much gratified by the tender care Aunt Linda bestowed
+on Iola.
+
+"I ain't goin' to let her do nuffin till she gits seasoned. She looks as
+sweet as a peach. I allers wanted some nice lady to come down yere and
+larn our gals some sense. I can't read myself, but I likes ter yere dem
+dat can."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda, I am going to teach in the Sunday-school, help in the
+church, hold mothers' meetings to help these boys and girls to grow up
+to be good men and women. Won't you get a pair of spectacles and learn
+to read?"
+
+"Oh, yer can't git dat book froo my head, no way you fix it. I knows
+nuff to git to hebben, and dat's all I wants to know." Aunt Linda was
+kind and obliging, but there was one place where she drew the line, and
+that was at learning to read.
+
+Harry and Miss Delany accompanied Iola as far as her new home, and
+remained several days. The evening before their departure, Harry took
+Miss Delany a drive of several miles through the pine barrens.
+
+"This thing is getting very monotonous," Harry broke out, when they had
+gone some distance.
+
+"Oh, I enjoy it!" replied Miss Delany. "These stately pines look so
+grand and solemn, they remind me of a procession of hooded monks."
+
+"What in the world are you talking about, Lucille?" asked Harry, looking
+puzzled.
+
+"About those pine-trees," replied Miss Delany, in a tone of surprise.
+
+"Pshaw, I wasn't thinking about them. I'm thinking about Iola and
+Frank."
+
+"What about them?" asked Lucille.
+
+"Why, when I was in P----, Dr. Latimer used to be first-rate company,
+but now it is nothing but what Iola wants, and what Iola says, and what
+Iola likes. I don't believe that there is a subject I could name to him,
+from spinning a top to circumnavigating the globe, that he wouldn't
+somehow contrive to bring Iola in. And I don't believe you could talk
+ten minutes to Iola on any subject, from dressing a doll to the latest
+discovery in science, that she wouldn't manage to lug in Frank."
+
+"Oh, you absurd creature!" responded Lucille, "this is their honeymoon,
+and they are deeply in love with each other. Wait till you get in love
+with some one."
+
+"I am in love now," replied Harry, with a serious air.
+
+"With whom?" asked Lucille, archly.
+
+"With you," answered Harry, trying to take her hand.
+
+"Oh, Harry!" she exclaimed, playfully resisting. "Don't be so
+nonsensical! Don't you think the bride looked lovely, with that dress of
+spotless white and with those orange blossoms in her hair?"
+
+"Yes, she did; that's a fact," responded Harry. "But, Lucille, I think
+there is a great deal of misplaced sentiment at weddings," he added,
+more seriously.
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Oh, here are a couple just married, and who are as happy as happy can
+be; and people will crowd around them wishing much joy; but who thinks
+of wishing joy to the forlorn old bachelors and restless old maids?"
+
+"Well, Harry, if you want people to wish you much happiness, why don't
+you do as the doctor has done, get yourself a wife?"
+
+"I will," he replied, soberly, "when you say so."
+
+"Oh, Harry, don't be so absurd."
+
+"Indeed there isn't a bit of absurdity about what I say. I am in
+earnest." There was something in the expression of Harry's face and the
+tone of his voice which arrested the banter on Lucille's lips.
+
+"I think it was Charles Lamb," replied Lucille, "who once said that
+school-teachers are uncomfortable people, and, Harry, I would not like
+to make you uncomfortable by marrying you."
+
+"You will make me uncomfortable by not marrying me."
+
+"But," replied Lucille, "your mother may not prefer me for a daughter.
+You know, Harry, complexional prejudices are not confined to white
+people."
+
+"My mother," replied Harry, with an air of confidence, "is too noble to
+indulge in such sentiments."
+
+"And Iola, would she be satisfied?"
+
+"Why, it would add to her satisfaction. She is not one who can't be
+white and won't be black."
+
+"Well, then," replied Lucille, "I will take the question of your comfort
+into consideration."
+
+The above promise was thoughtfully remembered by Lucille till a bridal
+ring and happy marriage were the result.
+
+Soon after Iola had settled in C---- she quietly took her place in the
+Sunday-school as a teacher, and in the church as a helper. She was
+welcomed by the young pastor, who found in her a strong and faithful
+ally. Together they planned meetings for the especial benefit of mothers
+and children. When the dens of vice are spreading their snares for the
+feet of the tempted and inexperienced her doors are freely opened for
+the instruction of the children before their feet have wandered and gone
+far astray. She has no carpets too fine for the tread of their little
+feet. She thinks it is better to have stains on her carpet than stains
+on their souls through any neglect of hers. In lowly homes and
+windowless cabins her visits are always welcome. Little children love
+her. Old age turns to her for comfort, young girls for guidance, and
+mothers for counsel. Her life is full of blessedness.
+
+Doctor Latimer by his kindness and skill has won the name of the "Good
+Doctor." But he is more than a successful doctor; he is a true patriot
+and a good citizen. Honest, just, and discriminating, he endeavors by
+precept and example to instill into the minds of others sentiments of
+good citizenship. He is a leader in every reform movement for the
+benefit of the community; but his patriotism is not confined to race
+lines. "The world is his country, and mankind his countrymen." While he
+abhors their deeds of violence, he pities the short-sighted and besotted
+men who seem madly intent upon laying magazines of powder under the
+cradles of unborn generations. He has great faith in the possibilities
+of the negro, and believes that, enlightened and Christianized, he will
+sink the old animosities of slavery into the new community of interests
+arising from freedom; and that his influence upon the South will be as
+the influence of the sun upon the earth. As when the sun passes from
+Capricorn to Cancer, beauty, greenness, and harmony spring up in his
+path, so he hopes that the future career of the negro will be a greater
+influence for freedom and social advancement than it was in the days of
+yore for slavery and its inferior civilization.
+
+Harry and Lucille are at the head of a large and flourishing school.
+Lucille gives her ripening experience to her chosen work, to which she
+was too devoted to resign. And through the school they are lifting up
+the homes of the people. Some have pitied, others blamed, Harry for
+casting his lot with the colored people, but he knows that life's
+highest and best advantages do not depend on the color of the skin or
+texture of the hair. He has his reward in the improved condition of his
+pupils and the superb manhood and noble life which he has developed in
+his much needed work.
+
+Uncle Daniel still lingers on the shores of time, a cheery, lovable old
+man, loved and respected by all; a welcome guest in every home. Soon
+after Iola's marriage, Robert sold out his business and moved with his
+mother and sister to North Carolina. He bought a large plantation near
+C----, which he divided into small homesteads, and sold to poor but
+thrifty laborers, and his heart has been gladdened by their increased
+prosperity and progress. He has seen the one-roomed cabins change to
+comfortable cottages, in which cleanliness and order have supplanted the
+prolific causes of disease and death. Kind and generous, he often
+remembers Mrs. Johnson and sends her timely aid.
+
+Marie's pale, spiritual face still bears traces of the beauty which was
+her youthful dower, but its bloom has been succeeded by an air of
+sweetness and dignity. Though frail in health, she is always ready to
+lend a helping hand wherever and whenever she can.
+
+Grandmother Johnson was glad to return South and spend the remnant of
+her days with the remaining friends of her early life. Although feeble,
+she is in full sympathy with her children for the uplifting of the race.
+Marie and her mother are enjoying their aftermath of life, one by
+rendering to others all the service in her power, while the other, with
+her face turned toward the celestial city, is
+
+    "Only waiting till the angels
+      Open wide the mystic gate."
+
+The shadows have been lifted from all their lives; and peace, like
+bright dew, has descended upon their paths. Blessed themselves, their
+lives are a blessing to others.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.
+
+From threads of fact and fiction I have woven a story whose mission will
+not be in vain if it awaken in the hearts of our countrymen a stronger
+sense of justice and a more Christlike humanity in behalf of those whom
+the fortunes of war threw, homeless, ignorant and poor, upon the
+threshold of a new era. Nor will it be in vain if it inspire the
+children of those upon whose brows God has poured the chrism of that new
+era to determine that they will embrace every opportunity, develop every
+faculty, and use every power God has given them to rise in the scale of
+character and condition, and to add their quota of good citizenship to
+the best welfare of the nation. There are scattered among us materials
+for mournful tragedies and mirth-provoking comedies, which some hand may
+yet bring into the literature of the country, glowing with the fervor of
+the tropics and enriched by the luxuriance of the Orient, and thus add
+to the solution of our unsolved American problem.
+
+The race has not had very long to straighten its hands from the hoe, to
+grasp the pen and wield it as a power for good, and to erect above the
+ruined auction-block and slave-pen institutions of learning, but
+
+    There is light beyond the darkness,
+          Joy beyond the present pain;
+    There is hope in God's great justice
+          And the negro's rising brain.
+    Though the morning seems to linger
+          O'er the hill-tops far away,
+    Yet the shadows bear the promise
+          Of a brighter coming day.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Iola Leroy, by Frances E.W. Harper
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IOLA LEROY ***
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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of Iola Leroy, by Frances E.W. Harper
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: Iola Leroy
+       Shadows Uplifted
+
+Author: Frances E.W. Harper
+
+Release Date: May 14, 2004 [EBook #12352]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IOLA LEROY ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Suzanne Shell and PG Distributed Proofreaders
+
+
+
+
+IOLA LEROY,
+
+OR
+
+SHADOWS UPLIFTED.
+
+BY
+
+FRANCES E.W. HARPER.
+
+
+
+
+1893, Philadelphia
+
+TO MY DAUGHTER
+
+MARY E. HARPER,
+
+THIS BOOK IS LOVINGLY DEDICATED.
+
+
+
+
+INTRODUCTION.
+
+
+I confess when I first learned that Mrs. Harper was about to write "a
+story" on some features of the Anglo-African race, growing out of what
+was once popularly known as the "peculiar institution," I had my doubts
+about the matter. Indeed it was far from being easy for me to think that
+she was as fortunate as she might have been in selecting a subject which
+would afford her the best opportunity for bringing out a work of merit
+and lasting worth to the race--such a work as some of her personal
+friends have long desired to see from her graphic pen. However, after
+hearing a good portion of the manuscript read, and a general statement
+with regard to the object in view, I admit frankly that my partial
+indifference was soon swept away; at least I was willing to wait for
+further developments.
+
+Being very desirous that one of the race, so long distinguished in the
+cause of freedom for her intellectual worth as Mrs. Harper has had the
+honor of being, should not at this late date in life make a blunder
+which might detract from her own good name, I naturally proposed to
+await developments before deciding too quickly in favor of giving
+encouragement to her contemplated effort.
+
+However, I was perfectly aware of the fact that she had much material in
+her possession for a most interesting book on the subject of the
+condition of the colored people in the South. I know of no other woman,
+white or colored, anywhere, who has come so intimately in contact with
+the colored people in the South as Mrs. Harper. Since emancipation she
+has labored in every Southern State in the Union, save two, Arkansas and
+Texas; in the colleges, schools, churches, and the cabins not excepted,
+she has found a vast field and open doors to teach and speak on the
+themes of education, temperance, and good home building, industry,
+morality, and the like, and never lacked for evidences of hearty
+appreciation and gratitude.
+
+Everywhere help was needed, and her heart being deeply absorbed in the
+cause she willingly allowed her sympathies to impel her to perform most
+heroic services.
+
+With her it was no uncommon occurrence, in visiting cities or towns, to
+speak at two, three, and four meetings a day; sometimes to promiscuous
+audiences composed of everybody who would care to come.
+
+But the kind of meetings she took greatest interest in were meetings
+called exclusively for women. In this attitude she could pour out her
+sympathies to them as she could not do before a mixed audience; and
+indeed she felt their needs were far more pressing than any other class.
+
+And now I am prepared to most fully indorse her story. I doubt whether
+she could, if she had tried ever so much, have hit upon a subject so
+well adapted to reach a large number of her friends and the public with
+both entertaining and instructive matter as successfully as she has done
+in this volume.
+
+The grand and ennobling sentiments which have characterized all her
+utterances in laboring for the elevation of the oppressed will not be
+found missing in this book.
+
+The previous books from her pen, which have been so very widely
+circulated and admired, North and South--"Forest Leaves," "Miscellaneous
+Poems," "Moses, a Story of the Nile," "Poems," and "Sketches of Southern
+Life" (five in number)--these, I predict, will be by far eclipsed by
+this last effort, which will, in all probability, be the crowning effort
+of her long and valuable services in the cause of humanity.
+
+While, as indicated, Mrs. Harper has done a large amount of work in the
+South, she has at the same time done much active service in the
+temperance cause in the North, as thousands of this class can testify.
+
+Before the war she was engaged as a speaker by anti-slavery
+associations; since then, by appointment of the Women's Christian
+Temperance Union, she has held the office of "Superintendent of Colored
+Work" for years. She has also held the office of one of the Directors of
+the Women's Congress of the United States.
+
+Under the auspices of these influential, earnest, and intelligent
+associations, she has been seen often on their platforms with the
+leading lady orators of the nation.
+
+Hence, being widely known not only amongst her own race but likewise by
+the reformers, laboring for the salvation of the intemperate and others
+equally unfortunate, there is little room to doubt that the book will be
+in great demand and will meet with warm congratulations from a goodly
+number outside of the author's social connections.
+
+Doubtless the thousands of colored Sunday-schools in the South, in
+casting about for an interesting, moral story-book, full of practical
+lessons, will not be content to be without "IOLA LEROY, OR SHADOWS
+UPLIFTED."
+
+WILLIAM STILL.
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+Chapter
+
+I. The Mystery of Market Speech and Prayer Meetings
+
+II. Contraband of War
+
+III. Uncle Daniel's Story
+
+IV. Arrival of the Union Army
+
+V. Release of Iola Leroy
+
+VI. Robert Johnson's Promotion and Religion
+
+VII. Tom Anderson's Death
+
+VIII. The Mystified Doctor
+
+IX. Eugene Leroy and Alfred Lorraine
+
+X. Shadows in the Home
+
+XI. The Plague and the Law
+
+XII. School-girl Notions
+
+XIII. A Rejected Suitor
+
+XIV. Harry Leroy
+
+XV. Robert and his Company
+
+XVI. After the Battle
+
+XVII. Flames in the School-Room
+
+XVIII. Searching for Lost Ones
+
+XIX. Striking Contrasts
+
+XX. A Revelation
+
+XXI. A Home for Mother
+
+XXII. Further Lifting of the Veil
+
+XXIII. Delightful Reunions
+
+XXIV. Northern Experience
+
+XXV. An Old Friend
+
+XXVI. Open Questions
+
+XXVII. Diverging Paths
+
+XXVIII. Dr. Latrobe's Mistake
+
+XXIX. Visitors from the South
+
+XXX. Friends in Council
+
+XXXI. Dawning Affections
+
+XXXII. Wooing and Wedding
+
+XXXIII. Conclusion
+
+Note
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+MYSTERY OF MARKET SPEECH AND PRAYER-MEETING.
+
+"Good mornin', Bob; how's butter dis mornin'?"
+
+"Fresh; just as fresh, as fresh can be."
+
+"Oh, glory!" said the questioner, whom we shall call Thomas Anderson,
+although he was known among his acquaintances as Marster Anderson's Tom.
+
+His informant regarding the condition of the market was Robert Johnson,
+who had been separated from his mother in his childhood and reared by
+his mistress as a favorite slave. She had fondled him as a pet animal,
+and even taught him to read. Notwithstanding their relation as mistress
+and slave, they had strong personal likings for each other.
+
+Tom Anderson was the servant of a wealthy planter, who lived in the city
+of C----, North Carolina. This planter was quite advanced in life, but
+in his earlier days he had spent much of his time in talking politics in
+his State and National capitals in winter, and in visiting pleasure
+resorts and watering places in summer. His plantations were left to the
+care of overseers who, in their turn, employed negro drivers to aid them
+in the work of cultivation and discipline. But as the infirmities of age
+were pressing upon him he had withdrawn from active life, and given the
+management of his affairs into the hands of his sons. As Robert Johnson
+and Thomas Anderson passed homeward from the market, having bought
+provisions for their respective homes, they seemed to be very
+light-hearted and careless, chatting and joking with each other; but
+every now and then, after looking furtively around, one would drop into
+the ears of the other some news of the battle then raging between the
+North and South which, like two great millstones, were grinding slavery
+to powder.
+
+As they passed along, they were met by another servant, who said in
+hurried tones, but with a glad accent in his voice:--
+
+"Did you see de fish in de market dis mornin'? Oh, but dey war splendid,
+jis' as fresh, as fresh kin be."
+
+"That's the ticket," said Robert, as a broad smile overspread his face.
+"I'll see you later."
+
+"Good mornin', boys," said another servant on his way to market. "How's
+eggs dis mornin'?"
+
+"Fust rate, fust rate," said Tom Anderson. "Bob's got it down fine."
+
+"I thought so; mighty long faces at de pos'-office dis mornin'; but I'd
+better move 'long," and with a bright smile lighting up his face he
+passed on with a quickened tread.
+
+There seemed to be an unusual interest manifested by these men in the
+state of the produce market, and a unanimous report of its good
+condition. Surely there was nothing in the primeness of the butter or
+the freshness of the eggs to change careless looking faces into such
+expressions of gratification, or to light dull eyes with such gladness.
+What did it mean?
+
+During the dark days of the Rebellion, when the bondman was turning his
+eyes to the American flag, and learning to hail it as an ensign of
+deliverance, some of the shrewder slaves, coming in contact with their
+masters and overhearing their conversations, invented a phraseology to
+convey in the most unsuspected manner news to each other from the
+battle-field. Fragile women and helpless children were left on the
+plantations while their natural protectors were at the front, and yet
+these bondmen refrained from violence. Freedom was coming in the wake of
+the Union army, and while numbers deserted to join their forces, others
+remained at home, slept in their cabins by night and attended to their
+work by day; but under this apparently careless exterior there was an
+undercurrent of thought which escaped the cognizance of their masters.
+In conveying tidings of the war, if they wished to announce a victory of
+the Union army, they said the butter was fresh, or that the fish and
+eggs were in good condition. If defeat befell them, then the butter and
+other produce were rancid or stale.
+
+Entering his home, Robert set his basket down. In one arm he held a
+bundle of papers which he had obtained from the train to sell to the
+boarders, who were all anxious to hear from the seat of battle. He
+slipped one copy out and, looking cautiously around, said to Linda, the
+cook, in a low voice:--
+
+"Splendid news in the papers. Secesh routed. Yankees whipped 'em out of
+their boots. Papers full of it. I tell you the eggs and the butter's
+mighty fresh this morning."
+
+"Oh, sho, chile," said Linda, "I can't read de newspapers, but ole
+Missus' face is newspaper nuff for me. I looks at her ebery mornin' wen
+she comes inter dis kitchen. Ef her face is long an' she walks kine o'
+droopy den I thinks things is gwine wrong for dem. But ef she comes out
+yere looking mighty pleased, an' larffin all ober her face, an' steppin'
+so frisky, den I knows de Secesh is gittin' de bes' ob de Yankees.
+Robby, honey, does you really b'lieve for good and righty dat dem
+Yankees is got horns?"
+
+"Of course not."
+
+"Well, I yered so."
+
+"Well, you heard a mighty big whopper."
+
+"Anyhow, Bobby, things goes mighty contrary in dis house. Ole Miss is in
+de parlor prayin' for de Secesh to gain de day, and we's prayin' in de
+cabins and kitchens for de Yankees to get de bes' ob it. But wasn't Miss
+Nancy glad wen dem Yankees run'd away at Bull's Run. It was nuffin but
+Bull's Run an' run away Yankees. How she did larff and skip 'bout de
+house. An' den me thinks to myself you'd better not holler till you gits
+out ob de woods. I specs 'fore dem Yankees gits froo you'll be larffin
+tother side ob your mouf. While you was gone to market ole Miss com'd
+out yere, her face looking as long as my arm, tellin' us all 'bout de
+war and saying dem Yankees whipped our folks all to pieces. And she was
+'fraid dey'd all be down yere soon. I thought they couldn't come too
+soon for we. But I didn't tell her so."
+
+"No, I don't expect you did."
+
+"No, I didn't; ef you buys me for a fool you loses your money shore. She
+said when dey com'd down yere she wanted all de men to hide, for dey'd
+kill all de men, but dey wouldn't tech de women."
+
+"It's no such thing. She's put it all wrong. Why them Yankees are our
+best friends."
+
+"Dat's jis' what I thinks. Ole Miss was jis' tryin to skeer a body. An'
+when she war done she jis' set down and sniffled an' cried, an' I war so
+glad I didn't know what to do. But I had to hole in. An' I made out I
+war orful sorry. An' Jinny said, 'O Miss Nancy, I hope dey won't come
+yere.' An' she said, 'I'se jis' 'fraid dey will come down yere and
+gobble up eberything dey can lay dere hands on.' An' she jis' looked as
+ef her heart war mos' broke, an' den she went inter de house. An' when
+she war gone, we jis' broke loose. Jake turned somersets, and said he
+warnt 'fraid ob dem Yankees; he know'd which side his brad was buttered
+on. Dat Jake is a cuter. When he goes down ter git de letters he cuts up
+all kines ob shines and capers. An' to look at him skylarking dere while
+de folks is waitin' for dere letters, an' talkin' bout de war, yer
+wouldn't think dat boy had a thimbleful of sense. But Jake's listenin'
+all de time wid his eyes and his mouf wide open, an' ketchin' eberything
+he kin, an' a heap ob news he gits dat way. As to Jinny, she jis'
+capered and danced all ober de flore. An' I jis' had to put my han' ober
+her mouf to keep ole Miss from yereing her. Oh, but we did hab a good
+time. Boy, yer oughter been yere."
+
+"And, Aunt Linda, what did you do?"
+
+"Oh, honey, I war jis' ready to crack my sides larffin, jis' to see what
+a long face Jinny puts on wen ole Miss is talkin', an' den to see dat
+face wen missus' back is turned, why it's good as a circus. It's nuff to
+make a horse larff."
+
+"Why, Aunt Linda, you never saw a circus?"
+
+"No, but I'se hearn tell ob dem, and I thinks dey mus' be mighty funny.
+An' I know it's orful funny to see how straight Jinny's face looks wen
+she's almos' ready to bust, while ole Miss is frettin' and fumin' 'bout
+dem Yankees an' de war. But, somehow, Robby, I ralely b'lieves dat we
+cullud folks is mixed up in dis fight. I seed it all in a vision. An'
+soon as dey fired on dat fort, Uncle Dan'el says to me: 'Linda, we's
+gwine to git our freedom.' An' I says: 'Wat makes you think so?" An' he
+says: 'Dey've fired on Fort Sumter, an' de Norf is boun' to whip.'"
+
+"I hope so," said Robert. "I think that we have a heap of friends up
+there."
+
+"Well, I'm jis' gwine to keep on prayin' an' b'lievin'."
+
+Just then the bell rang, and Robert, answering, found Mrs. Johnson
+suffering from a severe headache, which he thought was occasioned by her
+worrying over the late defeat of the Confederates. She sent him on an
+errand, which he executed with his usual dispatch, and returned to some
+work which he had to do in the kitchen. Robert was quite a favorite with
+Aunt Linda, and they often had confidential chats together.
+
+"Bobby," she said, when he returned, "I thinks we ort ter hab a
+prayer-meetin' putty soon."
+
+"I am in for that. Where will you have it?"
+
+"Lem me see. Las' Sunday we had it in Gibson's woods; Sunday 'fore las',
+in de old cypress swamp; an' nex' Sunday we'el hab one in McCullough's
+woods. Las' Sunday we had a good time. I war jis' chock full an' runnin'
+ober. Aunt Milly's daughter's bin monin all summer, an' she's jis' come
+throo. We had a powerful time. Eberythin' on dat groun' was jis' alive.
+I tell yer, dere was a shout in de camp."
+
+"Well, you had better look out, and not shout too much, and pray and
+sing too loud, because, 'fore you know, the patrollers will be on your
+track and break up your meetin' in a mighty big hurry, before you can
+say 'Jack Robinson.'"
+
+"Oh, we looks out for dat. We's got a nice big pot, dat got cracked las'
+winter, but it will hole a lot o' water, an' we puts it whar we can tell
+it eberything. We has our own good times. An' I want you to come Sunday
+night an' tell all 'bout the good eggs, fish, and butter. Mark my words,
+Bobby, we's all gwine to git free. I seed it all in a vision, as plain
+as de nose on yer face."
+
+"Well, I hope your vision will come out all right, and that the eggs
+will keep and the butter be fresh till we have our next meetin'."
+
+"Now, Bob, you sen' word to Uncle Dan'el, Tom Anderson, an' de rest ob
+dem, to come to McCullough's woods nex' Sunday night. I want to hab a
+sin-killin' an' debil-dribin' time. But, boy, you'd better git out er
+yere. Ole Miss'll be down on yer like a scratch cat."
+
+Although the slaves were denied unrestricted travel, and the holding of
+meetings without the surveillance of a white man, yet they contrived to
+meet by stealth and hold gatherings where they could mingle their
+prayers and tears, and lay plans for escaping to the Union army.
+Outwitting the vigilance of the patrollers and home guards, they
+established these meetings miles apart, extending into several States.
+
+Sometimes their hope of deliverance was cruelly blighted by hearing of
+some adventurous soul who, having escaped to the Union army, had been
+pursued and returned again to bondage. Yet hope survived all these
+disasters which gathered around the fate of their unfortunate brethren,
+who were remanded to slavery through the undiscerning folly of those who
+were strengthening the hands which were dealing their deadliest blows at
+the heart of the Nation. But slavery had cast such a glamour over the
+Nation, and so warped the consciences of men, that they failed to read
+aright the legible transcript of Divine retribution which was written
+upon the shuddering earth, where the blood of God's poor children had
+been as water freely spilled.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+CONTRABAND OF WAR.
+
+A few evenings after this conversation between Robert and Linda, a
+prayer-meeting was held. Under the cover of night a few dusky figures
+met by stealth in McCullough's woods.
+
+"Howdy," said Robert, approaching Uncle Daniel, the leader of the
+prayer-meeting, who had preceded him but a few minutes.
+
+"Thanks and praise; I'se all right. How is you, chile?"
+
+"Oh, I'm all right," said Robert, smiling, and grasping Uncle Daniel's
+hand.
+
+"What's de news?" exclaimed several, as they turned their faces eagerly
+towards Robert.
+
+"I hear," said Robert, "that they are done sending the runaways back to
+their masters."
+
+"Is dat so?" said a half dozen earnest voices. "How did you yere it?"
+
+"I read it in the papers. And Tom told me he heard them talking about it
+last night, at his house. How did you hear it, Tom? Come, tell us all
+about it."
+
+Tom Anderson hesitated a moment, and then said:--
+
+"Now, boys, I'll tell you all 'bout it. But you's got to be mighty mum
+'bout it. It won't do to let de cat outer de bag."
+
+"Dat's so! But tell us wat you yered. We ain't gwine to say nuffin to
+nobody."
+
+"Well," said Tom, "las' night ole Marster had company. Two big
+ginerals, and dey was hoppin' mad. One ob dem looked like a turkey
+gobbler, his face war so red. An' he sed one ob dem Yankee ginerals, I
+thinks dey called him Beas' Butler, sed dat de slaves dat runned away
+war some big name--I don't know what he called it. But it meant dat all
+ob we who com'd to de Yankees should be free."
+
+"Contraband of war," said Robert, who enjoyed the distinction of being a
+good reader, and was pretty well posted about the war. Mrs. Johnson had
+taught him to read on the same principle she would have taught a pet
+animal amusing tricks. She had never imagined the time would come when
+he would use the machinery she had put in his hands to help overthrow
+the institution to which she was so ardently attached.
+
+"What does it mean? Is it somethin' good for us?"
+
+"I think," said Robert, a little vain of his superior knowledge, "it is
+the best kind of good. It means if two armies are fighting and the
+horses of one run away, the other has a right to take them. And it is
+just the same if a slave runs away from the Secesh to the Union lines.
+He is called a contraband, just the same as if he were an ox or a horse.
+They wouldn't send the horses back, and they won't send us back."
+
+"Is dat so?" said Uncle Daniel, a dear old father, with a look of
+saintly patience on his face. "Well, chillen, what do you mean to do?"
+
+"Go, jis' as soon as we kin git to de army," said Tom Anderson.
+
+"What else did the generals say? And how did you come to hear them,
+Tom?" asked Robert Johnson.
+
+"Well, yer see, Marster's too ole and feeble to go to de war, but his
+heart's in it. An' it makes him feel good all ober when dem big ginerals
+comes an' tells him all 'bout it. Well, I war laying out on de porch
+fas' asleep an' snorin' drefful hard. Oh, I war so soun' asleep dat wen
+Marster wanted some ice-water he had to shake me drefful hard to wake me
+up. An' all de time I war wide 'wake as he war."
+
+"What did they say?" asked Robert, who was always on the lookout for
+news from the battle-field.
+
+"One ob dem said, dem Yankees war talkin' of puttin' guns in our han's
+and settin' us all free. An' de oder said, 'Oh, sho! ef dey puts guns in
+dere hands dey'll soon be in our'n; and ef dey sets em free dey wouldn't
+know how to take keer ob demselves.'"
+
+"Only let 'em try it," chorused a half dozen voices, "an' dey'll soon
+see who'll git de bes' ob de guns; an' as to taking keer ob ourselves, I
+specs we kin take keer ob ourselves as well as take keer ob dem."
+
+"Yes," said Tom, "who plants de cotton and raises all de crops?"
+
+    "'They eat the meat and give us the bones,
+      Eat the cherries and give us the stones,'
+
+"And I'm getting tired of the whole business," said Robert.
+
+"But, Bob," said Uncle Daniel, "you've got a good owner. You don't hab
+to run away from bad times and wuss a comin'."
+
+"It isn't so good, but it might be better. I ain't got nothing 'gainst
+my ole Miss, except she sold my mother from me. And a boy ain't nothin'
+without his mother. I forgive her, but I never forget her, and never
+expect to. But if she were the best woman on earth I would rather have
+my freedom than belong to her. Well, boys, here's a chance for us just
+as soon as the Union army gets in sight. What will you do?"
+
+"I'se a goin," said Tom Anderson, "jis' as soon as dem Linkum soldiers
+gits in sight."
+
+"An' I'se a gwine wid you, Tom," said another. "I specs my ole
+Marster'll feel right smart lonesome when I'se gone, but I don't keer
+'bout stayin' for company's sake."
+
+"My ole Marster's room's a heap better'n his company," said Tom
+Anderson, "an' I'se a goner too. Dis yer freedom's too good to be lef'
+behind, wen you's got a chance to git it. I won't stop to bid ole Marse
+good bye."
+
+"What do you think," said Robert, turning to Uncle Daniel; "won't you go
+with us?"
+
+"No, chillen, I don't blame you for gwine; but I'se gwine to stay.
+Slavery's done got all de marrow out ob dese poor ole bones. Ef freedom
+comes it won't do me much good; we ole one's will die out, but it will
+set you youngsters all up."
+
+"But, Uncle Daniel, you're not too old to want your freedom?"
+
+"I knows dat. I lubs de bery name of freedom. I'se been praying and
+hoping for it dese many years. An' ef I warn't boun', I would go wid you
+ter-morrer. I won't put a straw in your way. You boys go, and my prayers
+will go wid you. I can't go, it's no use. I'se gwine to stay on de ole
+place till Marse Robert comes back, or is brought back."
+
+"But, Uncle Daniel," said Robert, "what's the use of praying for a
+thing if, when it comes, you won't take it? As much as you have been
+praying and talking about freedom, I thought that when the chance came
+you would have been one of the first to take it. Now, do tell us why you
+won't go with us. Ain't you willing?"
+
+"Why, Robbie, my whole heart is wid you. But when Marse Robert went to
+de war, he called me into his room and said to me, 'Uncle Dan'el, I'se
+gwine to de war, an' I want you to look arter my wife an' chillen, an'
+see dat eberything goes right on de place'. An' I promised him I'd do it,
+an' I mus' be as good as my word. 'Cept de overseer, dere isn't a white
+man on de plantation, an' I hear he has to report ter-morrer or be
+treated as a deserter. An' der's nobody here to look arter Miss Mary an'
+de chillen, but myself, an' to see dat eberything goes right. I promised
+Marse Robert I would do it, an' I mus' be as good as my word."
+
+"Well, what should you keer?" said Tom Anderson. "Who looked arter you
+when you war sole from your farder and mudder, an' neber seed dem any
+more, and wouldn't know dem to-day ef you met dem in your dish?"
+
+"Well, dats neither yere nor dere. Marse Robert couldn't help what his
+father did. He war an orful mean man. But he's dead now, and gone to see
+'bout it. But his wife war the nicest, sweetest lady dat eber I did see.
+She war no more like him dan chalk's like cheese. She used to visit de
+cabins, an' listen to de pore women when de overseer used to cruelize
+dem so bad, an' drive dem to work late and early. An' she used to sen'
+dem nice things when they war sick, and hab der cabins whitewashed an'
+lookin' like new pins, an' look arter dere chillen. Sometimes she'd try
+to git ole Marse to take dere part when de oberseer got too mean. But
+she might as well a sung hymns to a dead horse. All her putty talk war
+like porin water on a goose's back. He'd jis' bluff her off, an' tell
+her she didn't run dat plantation, and not for her to bring him any
+nigger news. I never thought ole Marster war good to her. I often
+ketched her crying, an' she'd say she had de headache, but I thought it
+war de heartache. 'Fore ole Marster died, she got so thin an' peaked I
+war 'fraid she war gwine to die; but she seed him out. He war killed by
+a tree fallin' on him, an' ef eber de debil got his own he got him. I
+seed him in a vision arter he war gone. He war hangin' up in a pit,
+sayin' 'Oh! oh!' wid no close on. He war allers blusterin', cussin', and
+swearin' at somebody. Marse Robert ain't a bit like him. He takes right
+arter his mother. Bad as ole Marster war, I think she jis' lob'd de
+groun' he walked on. Well, women's mighty curious kind of folks anyhow.
+I sometimes thinks de wuss you treats dem de better dey likes you."
+
+"Well," said Tom, a little impatiently, "what's yer gwine to do? Is yer
+gwine wid us, ef yer gits a chance?"
+
+"Now, jes' you hole on till I gits a chance to tell yer why I'se gwine
+to stay."
+
+"Well, Uncle Daniel, let's hear it," said Robert.
+
+"I was jes' gwine to tell yer when Tom put me out. Ole Marster died when
+Marse Robert war two years ole, and his pore mother when he war four.
+When he died, Miss Anna used to keep me 'bout her jes' like I war her
+shadder. I used to nuss Marse Robert jes' de same as ef I were his own
+fadder. I used to fix his milk, rock him to sleep, ride him on my back,
+an' nothin' pleased him better'n fer Uncle Dan'el to ride him
+piggy-back."
+
+"Well, Uncle Daniel," said Robert, "what has that got to do with your
+going with us and getting your freedom?"
+
+"Now, jes' wait a bit, and don't frustrate my mine. I seed day arter day
+Miss Anna war gettin' weaker and thinner, an' she looked so sweet and
+talked so putty, I thinks to myself, 'you ain't long for dis worl'.' And
+she said to me one day, 'Uncle Dan'el, when I'se gone, I want you to be
+good to your Marster Robert.' An' she looked so pale and weak I war
+almost ready to cry. I couldn't help it. She hed allers bin mighty good
+to me. An' I beliebs in praisin' de bridge dat carries me ober. She
+said, 'Uncle Dan'el, I wish you war free. Ef I had my way you shouldn't
+serve any one when I'm gone; but Mr. Thurston had eberything in his
+power when he made his will. I war tied hand and foot, and I couldn't
+help it.' In a little while she war gone--jis' faded away like a flower.
+I belieb ef dere's a saint in glory, Miss Anna's dere."
+
+"Oh, I don't take much stock in white folks' religion," said Robert,
+laughing carelessly.
+
+"The way," said Tom Anderson, "dat some of dese folks cut their cards
+yere, I think dey'll be as sceece in hebben as hen's teeth. I think wen
+some of dem preachers brings de Bible 'round an' tells us 'bout mindin
+our marsters and not stealin' dere tings, dat dey preach to please de
+white folks, an' dey frows coleness ober de meetin'."
+
+"An' I," said Aunt Linda, "neber did belieb in dem Bible preachers. I
+yered one ob dem sayin' wen he war dyin', it war all dark wid him. An'
+de way he treated his house-girl, pore thing, I don't wonder dat it war
+dark wid him."
+
+"O, I guess," said Robert, "that the Bible is all right, but some of
+these church folks don't get the right hang of it."
+
+"May be dat's so," said Aunt Linda. "But I allers wanted to learn how to
+read. I once had a book, and tried to make out what war in it, but ebery
+time my mistus caught me wid a book in my hand, she used to whip my
+fingers. An' I couldn't see ef it war good for white folks, why it
+warn't good for cullud folks."
+
+"Well," said Tom Anderson, "I belieb in de good ole-time religion. But
+arter dese white folks is done fussin' and beatin' de cullud folks, I
+don't want 'em to come talking religion to me. We used to hab on our
+place a real Guinea man, an' once he made ole Marse mad, an' he had him
+whipped. Old Marse war trying to break him in, but dat fellow war spunk
+to de backbone, an' when he 'gin talkin' to him 'bout savin' his soul
+an' gittin' to hebbin, he tole him ef he went to hebbin an' foun' he war
+dare, he wouldn't go in. He wouldn't stay wid any such rascal as he
+war."
+
+"What became of him?" asked Robert.
+
+"Oh, he died. But he had some quare notions 'bout religion. He thought
+dat when he died he would go back to his ole country. He allers kep' his
+ole Guinea name."
+
+"What was it?"
+
+"Potobombra. Do you know what he wanted Marster to do 'fore he died?"
+continued Anderson.
+
+"No."
+
+"He wanted him to gib him his free papers."
+
+"Did he do it?"
+
+"Ob course he did. As de poor fellow war dying an' he couldn't sell him
+in de oder world, he jis' wrote him de papers to yumor him. He didn't
+want to go back to Africa a slave. He thought if he did, his people
+would look down on him, an' he wanted to go back a free man. He war
+orful weak when Marster brought him de free papers. He jis' ris up in de
+bed, clutched dem in his han's, smiled, an' gasped out, 'I'se free at
+las'; an' fell back on de pillar, an' he war gone. Oh, but he war
+spunky. De oberseers, arter dey foun' out who he war, gin'rally gabe him
+a wide birth. I specs his father war some ole Guinea king."
+
+"Well, chillen," said Uncle Daniel, "we's kept up dis meeting long
+enough. We'd better go home, and not all go one way, cause de patrollers
+might git us all inter trouble, an' we must try to slip home by hook or
+crook."
+
+"An' when we meet again, Uncle Daniel can finish his story, an' be ready
+to go with us," said Robert.
+
+"I wish," said Tom Anderson, "he would go wid us, de wuss kind."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+UNCLE DANIEL'S STORY.
+
+The Union had snapped asunder because it lacked the cohesion of justice,
+and the Nation was destined to pass through the crucible of disaster and
+defeat, till she was ready to clasp hands with the negro and march
+abreast with him to freedom and victory.
+
+The Union army was encamping a few miles from C----, in North Carolina.
+Robert, being well posted on the condition of affairs, had stealthily
+contrived to call a meeting in Uncle Daniel's cabin. Uncle Daniel's wife
+had gone to bed as a sick sister, and they held a prayer-meeting by her
+bedside. It was a little risky, but as Mr. Thurston did not encourage
+the visits of the patrollers, and heartily detested having them prying
+into his cabins, there was not much danger of molestation.
+
+"Well, Uncle Daniel, we want to hear your story, and see if you have
+made up your mind to go with us," said Robert, after he had been seated
+a few minutes in Uncle Daniel's cabin.
+
+"No, chillen, I've no objection to finishin' my story, but I ain't made
+up my mind to leave the place till Marse Robert gits back."
+
+"You were telling us about Marse Robert's mother. How did you get along
+after she died?"
+
+"Arter she war gone, ole Marster's folks come to look arter things. But
+eberything war lef' to Marse Robert, an' he wouldn't do widout me. Dat
+chile war allers at my heels. I couldn't stir widout him, an' when he
+missed me, he'd fret an' cry so I had ter stay wid him; an' wen he went
+to school, I had ter carry him in de mornin' and bring him home in de
+ebenin'. An' I learned him to hunt squirrels, an' rabbits, an' ketch
+fish, an' set traps for birds. I beliebs he lob'd me better dan any ob
+his kin'. An' he showed me how to read."
+
+"Well," said Tom, "ef he lob'd you so much, why didn't he set you free?"
+
+"Marse Robert tole me, ef he died fust he war gwine ter leave me
+free--dat I should neber sarve any one else."
+
+"Oh, sho!" said Tom, "promises, like pie crusts, is made to be broken. I
+don't trust none ob dem. I'se been yere dese fifteen years, an' I'se
+neber foun' any troof in dem. An' I'se gwine wid dem North men soon's I
+gits a chance. An' ef you knowed what's good fer you, you'd go, too."
+
+"No, Tom; I can't go. When Marster Robert went to de front, he called me
+to him an' said: 'Uncle Daniel,' an' he was drefful pale when he said
+it, 'I are gwine to de war, an' I want yer to take keer of my wife an'
+chillen, jis' like yer used to take keer of me wen yer called me your
+little boy.' Well, dat jis' got to me, an' I couldn't help cryin', to
+save my life."
+
+"I specs," said Tom, "your tear bags must lie mighty close to your eyes.
+I wouldn't cry ef dem Yankees would make ebery one ob dem go to de
+front, an' stay dere foreber. Dey'd only be gittin' back what dey's been
+a doin' to us."
+
+"Marster Robert war nebber bad to me. An' I beliebs in stannin' by dem
+dat stans by you. Arter Miss Anna died, I had great 'sponsibilities on
+my shoulders; but I war orful lonesome, an' thought I'd like to git a
+wife. But dere warn't a gal on de plantation, an' nowhere's roun', dat
+filled de bill. So I jis' waited, an' 'tended to Marse Robert till he
+war ole 'nough to go to college. Wen he went, he allers 'membered me in
+de letters he used to write his grandma. Wen he war gone, I war
+lonesomer dan eber. But, one day, I jis' seed de gal dat took de rag off
+de bush. Gundover had jis' brought her from de up-country. She war putty
+as a picture!" he exclaimed, looking fondly at his wife, who still bore
+traces of great beauty. "She had putty hair, putty eyes, putty mouth.
+She war putty all over; an' she know'd how to put on style."
+
+"O, Daniel," said Aunt Katie, half chidingly, "how you do talk."
+
+"Why, it's true. I 'member when you war de puttiest gal in dese diggins;
+when nobody could top your cotton."
+
+"I don't," said Aunt Katie.
+
+"Well, I do. Now, let me go on wid my story. De fust time I seed her, I
+sez to myself, 'Dat's de gal for me, an' I means to hab her ef I kin git
+her.' So I scraped 'quaintance wid her, and axed her ef she would hab me
+ef our marsters would let us. I warn't 'fraid 'bout Marse Robert, but I
+warn't quite shore 'bout Gundover. So when Marse Robert com'd home, I
+axed him, an' he larf'd an' said, 'All right,' an' dat he would speak to
+ole Gundover 'bout it. He didn't relish it bery much, but he didn't
+like to 'fuse Marse Robert. He wouldn't sell her, for she tended his
+dairy, an' war mighty handy 'bout de house. He said, I mought marry her
+an' come to see her wheneber Marse Robert would gib me a pass. I wanted
+him to sell her, but he wouldn't hear to it, so I had to put up wid what
+I could git. Marse Robert war mighty good to me, but ole Gundover's wife
+war de meanest woman dat I eber did see. She used to go out on de
+plantation an' boss things like a man. Arter I war married, I had a
+baby. It war de dearest, cutest little thing you eber did see; but, pore
+thing, it got sick and died. It died 'bout three o'clock; and in de
+mornin', Katie, habbin her cows to milk, lef her dead baby in de cabin.
+When she com'd back from milkin' her thirty cows, an' went to look for
+her pore little baby, some one had been to her cabin an' took'd de pore
+chile away an' put it in de groun'. Pore Katie, she didn't eben hab a
+chance to kiss her baby 'fore it war buried. Ole Gundover's wife has
+been dead thirty years, an' she didn't die a day too soon. An' my little
+baby has gone to glory, an' is wingin' wid the angels an' a lookin' out
+for us. One ob de las' things ole Gundover's wife did 'fore she died war
+to order a woman whipped 'cause she com'd to de field a little late when
+her husband war sick, an' she had stopped to tend him. Dat mornin' she
+war taken sick wid de fever, an' in a few days she war gone out like de
+snuff ob a candle. She lef' several sons, an' I specs she would almos'
+turn ober in her grave ef she know'd she had ten culled granchillen
+somewhar down in de lower kentry."
+
+"Isn't it funny," said Robert, "how these white folks look down on
+colored people, an' then mix up with them?"
+
+"Marster war away when Miss 'Liza treated my Katie so mean, an' when I
+tole him 'bout it, he war tearin' mad, an' went ober an' saw ole
+Gundover, an' foun' out he war hard up for money, an' he bought Katie
+and brought her home to lib wid me, and we's been a libin in clover eber
+sence. Marster Robert has been mighty good to me. He stood by me in my
+troubles, an' now his trouble's come, I'm a gwine to stan' by him. I
+used to think Gundover's wife war jealous ob my Katie. She war so much
+puttier. Gundover's wife couldn't tech my Katie wid a ten foot pole."
+
+"But, Aunt Katie, you have had your trials," said Robert, now that
+Daniel had finished his story; "don't you feel bitter towards these
+people who are fighting to keep you in slavery?"
+
+Aunt Katie turned her face towards the speaker. It was a thoughtful,
+intelligent face, saintly and calm. A face which expressed the idea of a
+soul which had been fearfully tempest tossed, but had passed through
+suffering into peace. Very touching was the look of resignation and hope
+which overspread her features as she replied, with the simple child-like
+faith which she had learned in the darkest hour, "The Lord says, we must
+forgive." And with her that thought, as coming from the lips of Divine
+Love, was enough to settle the whole question of forgiveness of injuries
+and love to enemies.
+
+"Well," said Thomas Anderson, turning to Uncle Daniel, "we can't count
+on yer to go wid us?"
+
+"Boys," said Uncle Daniel, and there was grief in his voice, "I'se
+mighty glad you hab a chance for your freedom; but, ez I tole yer, I
+promised Marse Robert I would stay, an' I mus' be as good as my word.
+Don't you youngsters stay for an ole stager like me. I'm ole an' mos'
+worn out. Freedom wouldn't do much for me, but I want you all to be as
+free as the birds; so, you chillen, take your freedom when you kin get
+it."
+
+"But, Uncle Dan'el, you won't say nothin' 'bout our going, will you?"
+said the youngest of the company.
+
+Uncle Daniel slowly arose. There was a mournful flash in his eye, a
+tremor of emotion in his voice, as he said, "Look yere, boys, de boy dat
+axed dat question war a new comer on dis plantation, but some ob you's
+bin here all ob your lives; did you eber know ob Uncle Dan'el gittin'
+any ob you inter trouble?"
+
+"No, no," exclaimed a chorus of voices, "but many's de time you've held
+off de blows wen de oberseer got too mean, an' cruelized us too much,
+wen Marse Robert war away. An' wen he got back, you made him settle de
+oberseer's hash."
+
+"Well, boys," said Uncle Daniel, with an air of mournful dignity, "I'se
+de same Uncle Dan'el I eber war. Ef any ob you wants to go, I habben't a
+word to say agin it. I specs dem Yankees be all right, but I knows Marse
+Robert, an' I don't know dem, an' I ain't a gwine ter throw away dirty
+water 'til I gits clean."
+
+"Well, Uncle Ben," said Robert, addressing a stalwart man whose towering
+form and darkly flashing eye told that slavery had failed to put the
+crouch in his shoulders or general abjectness into his demeanor, "you
+will go with us, for sure, won't you?"
+
+"Yes," spoke up Tom Anderson, "'cause de trader's done took your wife,
+an' got her for his'n now."
+
+As Ben Tunnel looked at the speaker, a spasm of agony and anger darkened
+his face and distorted his features, as if the blood of some strong
+race were stirring with sudden vigor through his veins. He clutched his
+hands together, as if he were struggling with an invisible foe, and for
+a moment he remained silent. Then suddenly raising his head, he
+exclaimed, "Boys, there's not one of you loves freedom more than I do,
+but--"
+
+"But what?" said Tom. "Do you think white folks is your bes' friends?"
+
+"I'll think so when I lose my senses."
+
+"Well, now, I don't belieb you're 'fraid, not de way I yeard you talkin'
+to de oberseer wen he war threatnin' to hit your mudder. He saw you
+meant business, an' he let her alone. But, what's to hinder you from
+gwine wid us?"
+
+"My mother," he replied, in a low, firm voice. "That is the only thing
+that keeps me from going. If it had not been for her, I would have gone
+long ago. She's all I've got, an' I'm all she's got."
+
+It was touching to see the sorrow on the strong face, to detect the
+pathos and indignation in his voice, as he said, "I used to love Mirandy
+as I love my life. I thought the sun rose and set in her. I never saw a
+handsomer woman than she was. But she fooled me all over the face and
+eyes, and took up with that hell-hound of a trader, Lukens; an' he gave
+her a chance to live easy, to wear fine clothes, an' be waited on like a
+lady. I thought at first I would go crazy, but my poor mammy did all she
+could to comfort me. She would tell me there were as good fish in the
+sea as were ever caught out of it. Many a time I've laid my poor head on
+her lap, when it seemed as if my brain was on fire and my heart was
+almost ready to burst. But in course of time I got over the worst of
+it; an' Mirandy is the first an' last woman that ever fooled me. But
+that dear old mammy of mine, I mean to stick by her as long as there is
+a piece of her. I can't go over to the army an' leave her behind, for if
+I did, an' anything should happen, I would never forgive myself."
+
+"But couldn't you take her with you," said Robert, "the soldiers said we
+could bring our women."
+
+"It isn't that. The Union army is several miles from here, an' my poor
+mammy is so skeery that, if I were trying to get her away and any of
+them Secesh would overtake us, an' begin to question us, she would get
+skeered almost to death, an' break down an' begin to cry, an' then the
+fat would be in the fire. So, while I love freedom more than a child
+loves its mother's milk, I've made up my mind to stay on the plantation.
+I wish, from the bottom of my heart, I could go. But I can't take her
+along with me, an' I don't want to be free and leave her behind in
+slavery. I was only five years old when my master and, as I believe,
+father, sold us both here to this lower country, an' we've been here
+ever since. It's no use talking, I won't leave her to be run over by
+everybody."
+
+A few evenings after this interview, the Union soldiers entered the town
+of C----, and established their headquarters near the home of Thomas
+Anderson.
+
+Out of the little company, almost every one deserted to the Union army,
+leaving Uncle Daniel faithful to his trust, and Ben Tunnel hushing his
+heart's deep aspirations for freedom in a passionate devotion to his
+timid and affectionate mother.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+ARRIVAL OF THE UNION ARMY.
+
+A few evenings before the stampede of Robert and his friends to the
+army, and as he sat alone in his room reading the latest news from the
+paper he had secreted, he heard a cautious tread and a low tap at his
+window. He opened the door quietly and whispered:--
+
+"Anything new, Tom?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"What is it? Come in."
+
+"Well, I'se done bin seen dem Yankees, an' dere ain't a bit of troof in
+dem stories I'se bin yerin 'bout 'em."
+
+"Where did you see 'em?"
+
+"Down in de woods whar Marster tole us to hide. Yesterday ole Marse sent
+for me to come in de settin'-room. An' what do you think? Instead ob
+makin' me stan' wid my hat in my han' while he went froo a whole
+rigamarole, he axed me to sit down, an' he tole me he 'spected de
+Yankees would want us to go inter de army, an' dey would put us in front
+whar we'd all git killed; an' I tole him I didn't want to go, I didn't
+want to git all momached up. An' den he said we'd better go down in de
+woods an' hide. Massa Tom and Frank said we'd better go as quick as eber
+we could. Dey said dem Yankees would put us in dere wagons and make us
+haul like we war mules. Marse Tom ain't libin' at de great house jis'
+now. He's keepin' bachellar's hall."
+
+"Didn't he go to the battle?"
+
+"No; he foun' a pore white man who war hard up for money, an' he got him
+to go."
+
+"But, Tom, you didn't believe these stories about the Yankees. Tom and
+Frank can lie as fast as horses can trot. They wanted to scare you, and
+keep you from going to the Union army."
+
+"I knows dat now, but I didn't 'spect so den."
+
+"Well, when did you see the soldiers? Where are they? And what did they
+say to you?"
+
+"Dey's right down in Gundover's woods. An' de Gineral's got his
+headquarters almos' next door to our house."
+
+"That near? Oh, you don't say so!"
+
+"Yes, I do. An', oh, golly, ain't I so glad! I jis' stole yere to told
+you all 'bout it. Yesterday mornin' I war splittin' some wood to git my
+breakfas', an' I met one ob dem Yankee sogers. Well, I war so skeered,
+my heart flew right up in my mouf, but I made my manners to him and
+said, 'Good mornin', Massa.' He said, 'Good mornin'; but don't call me
+"massa."' Dat war de fust white man I eber seed dat didn't want ter be
+called 'massa,' eben ef he war as pore as Job's turkey. Den I begin to
+feel right sheepish, an' he axed me ef my marster war at home, an' ef he
+war a Reb. I tole him he hadn't gone to de war, but he war Secesh all
+froo, inside and outside. He war too ole to go to de war, but dat he war
+all de time gruntin' an' groanin', an' I 'spected he'd grunt hisself to
+death."
+
+"What did he say?"
+
+"He said he specs he'll grunt worser dan dat fore dey get froo wid him.
+Den he axed me ef I would hab some breakfas,' an' I said, 'No, t'ank
+you, sir.' 'An' I war jis' as hungry as a dorg, but I war 'feared to
+eat. I war 'feared he war gwine to pizen me."
+
+"Poison you! don't you know the Yankees are our best friends?"
+
+"Well, ef dat's so, I'se mighty glad, cause de woods is full ob dem."
+
+"Now, Tom, I thought you had cut your eye-teeth long enough not to let
+them Anderson boys fool you. Tom, you must not think because a white man
+says a thing, it must be so, and that a colored man's word is no account
+'longside of his. Tom, if ever we get our freedom, we've got to learn to
+trust each other and stick together if we would be a people. Somebody
+else can read the papers as well as Marse Tom and Frank. My ole Miss
+knows I can read the papers, an' she never tries to scare me with big
+whoppers 'bout the Yankees. She knows she can't catch ole birds with
+chaff, so she is just as sweet as a peach to her Bobby. But as soon as I
+get a chance I will play her a trick the devil never did."
+
+"What's that?"
+
+"I'll leave her. I ain't forgot how she sold my mother from me. Many a
+night I have cried myself to sleep, thinking about her, and when I get
+free I mean to hunt her up."
+
+"Well, I ain't tole you all. De gemman said he war 'cruiting for de
+army; dat Massa Linkum hab set us all free, an' dat he wanted some more
+sogers to put down dem Secesh; dat we should all hab our freedom, our
+wages, an' some kind ob money. I couldn't call it like he did."
+
+"Bounty money," said Robert.
+
+"Yes, dat's jis' what he called it, bounty money. An' I said dat I war
+in for dat, teeth and toe-nails."
+
+Robert Johnson's heart gave a great bound. Was that so? Had that army,
+with freedom emblazoned on its banners, come at last to offer them
+deliverance if they would accept it? Was it a bright, beautiful dream,
+or a blessed reality soon to be grasped by his willing hands? His heart
+grew buoyant with hope; the lightness of his heart gave elasticity to
+his step and sent the blood rejoicingly through his veins. Freedom was
+almost in his grasp, and the future was growing rose-tinted and
+rainbow-hued. All the ties which bound him to his home were as ropes of
+sand, now that freedom had come so near.
+
+When the army was afar off, he had appeared to be light-hearted and
+content with his lot. If asked if he desired his freedom, he would have
+answered, very naively, that he was eating his white bread and believed
+in letting well enough alone; he had no intention of jumping from the
+frying-pan into the fire. But in the depths of his soul the love of
+freedom was an all-absorbing passion; only danger had taught him
+caution. He had heard of terrible vengeance being heaped upon the heads
+of some who had sought their freedom and failed in the attempt. Robert
+knew that he might abandon hope if he incurred the wrath of men whose
+overthrow was only a question of time. It would have been madness and
+folly for him to have attempted an insurrection against slavery, with
+the words of McClellan ringing in his ears: "If you rise I shall put you
+down with an iron hand," and with the home guards ready to quench his
+aspirations for freedom with bayonets and blood. What could a set of
+unarmed and undisciplined men do against the fearful odds which beset
+their path?
+
+Robert waited eagerly and hopefully his chance to join the Union army;
+and was ready and willing to do anything required of him by which he
+could earn his freedom and prove his manhood. He conducted his plans
+with the greatest secrecy. A few faithful and trusted friends stood
+ready to desert with him when the Union army came within hailing
+distance. When it came, there was a stampede to its ranks of men ready
+to serve in any capacity, to labor in the tents, fight on the fields, or
+act as scouts. It was a strange sight to see these black men rallying
+around the Stars and Stripes, when white men were trampling them under
+foot and riddling them with bullets.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V.
+
+
+THE RELEASE OF IOLA LEROY.
+
+"Well, boys," said Robert to his trusted friends, as they gathered
+together at a meeting in Gundover's woods, almost under the shadow of
+the Union army, "how many of you are ready to join the army and fight
+for your freedom."
+
+"All ob us."
+
+"The soldiers," continued Robert, "are camped right at the edge of the
+town. The General has his headquarters in the heart of the town, and one
+of the officers told me yesterday that the President had set us all
+free, and that as many as wanted to join the army could come along to
+the camp. So I thought, boys, that I would come and tell you. Now, you
+can take your bag and baggage, and get out of here as soon as you
+choose."
+
+"We'll be ready by daylight," said Tom. "It won't take me long to pack
+up," looking down at his seedy clothes, with a laugh. "I specs ole
+Marse'll be real lonesome when I'm gone. An' won't he be hoppin' mad
+when he finds I'm a goner? I specs he'll hate it like pizen."
+
+"O, well," said Robert, "the best of friends must part. Don't let it
+grieve you."
+
+"I'se gwine to take my wife an' chillen," said one of the company.
+
+"I'se got nobody but myself," said Tom; "but dere's a mighty putty
+young gal dere at Marse Tom's. I wish I could git her away. Dey tells me
+dey's been sellin' her all ober de kentry; but dat she's a reg'lar
+spitfire; dey can't lead nor dribe her."
+
+"Do you think she would go with us?" said Robert.
+
+"I think she's jis' dying to go. Dey say dey can't do nuffin wid her.
+Marse Tom's got his match dis time, and I'se glad ob it. I jis' glories
+in her spunk."
+
+"How did she come there?"
+
+"Oh, Marse bought her ob de trader to keep house for him. But ef you
+seed dem putty white han's ob hern you'd never tink she kept her own
+house, let 'lone anybody else's."
+
+"Do you think you can get her away?"
+
+"I don't know; 'cause Marse Tom keeps her mighty close. My! but she's
+putty. Beautiful long hair comes way down her back; putty blue eyes, an'
+jis' ez white ez anybody's in dis place. I'd jis' wish you could see her
+yoresef. I heerd Marse Tom talkin' 'bout her las' night to his brudder;
+tellin' him she war mighty airish, but he meant to break her in."
+
+An angry curse rose to the lips of Robert, but he repressed it and
+muttered to himself, "Graceless scamp, he ought to have his neck
+stretched." Then turning to Tom, said:--
+
+"Get her, if you possibly can, but you must be mighty mum about it."
+
+"Trus' me for dat," said Tom.
+
+Tom was very anxious to get word to the beautiful but intractable girl
+who was held in durance vile by her reckless and selfish master, who had
+tried in vain to drag her down to his own low level of sin and shame.
+But all Tom's efforts were in vain. Finally he applied to the Commander
+of the post, who immediately gave orders for her release. The next day
+Tom had the satisfaction of knowing that Iola Leroy had been taken as a
+trembling dove from the gory vulture's nest and given a place of
+security. She was taken immediately to the General's headquarters. The
+General was much impressed by her modest demeanor, and surprised to see
+the refinement and beauty she possessed. Could it be possible that this
+young and beautiful girl had been a chattel, with no power to protect
+herself from the highest insults that lawless brutality could inflict
+upon innocent and defenseless womanhood? Could he ever again glory in
+his American citizenship, when any white man, no matter how coarse,
+cruel, or brutal, could buy or sell her for the basest purposes? Was it
+not true that the cause of a hapless people had become entangled with
+the lightnings of heaven, and dragged down retribution upon the land?
+
+The field hospital was needing gentle, womanly ministrations, and Iola
+Leroy, released from the hands of her tormentors, was given a place as
+nurse; a position to which she adapted herself with a deep sense of
+relief. Tom was doubly gratified at the success of his endeavors, which
+had resulted in the rescue of the beautiful young girl and the
+discomfiture of his young master who, in the words of Tom, "was mad
+enough to bite his head off" (a rather difficult physical feat).
+
+Iola, freed from her master's clutches, applied herself readily to her
+appointed tasks. The beautiful, girlish face was full of tender
+earnestness. The fresh, young voice was strangely sympathetic, as if
+some great sorrow had bound her heart in loving compassion to every
+sufferer who needed her gentle ministrations.
+
+Tom Anderson was a man of herculean strength and remarkable courage.
+But, on account of physical defects, instead of enlisting as a soldier,
+he was forced to remain a servant, although he felt as if every nerve in
+his right arm was tingling to strike a blow for freedom. He was well
+versed in the lay of the country, having often driven his master's
+cotton to market when he was a field hand. After he became a coachman,
+he had become acquainted with the different roads and localities of the
+country. Besides, he had often accompanied his young masters on their
+hunting and fishing expeditions. Although he could not fight in the
+army, he proved an invaluable helper. When tents were to be pitched,
+none were more ready to help than he. When burdens were to be borne,
+none were more willing to bend beneath them than Thomas Anderson. When
+the battle-field was to be searched for the wounded and dying, no hand
+was more tender in its ministrations of kindness than his. As a general
+factotum in the army, he was ever ready and willing to serve anywhere
+and at any time, and to gather information from every possible source
+which could be of any service to the Union army. As a Pagan might
+worship a distant star and wish to call it his own, so he loved Iola.
+And he never thought he could do too much for the soldiers who had
+rescued her and were bringing deliverance to his race.
+
+"What do you think of Miss Iola?" Robert asked him one day, as they were
+talking together.
+
+"I jis' think dat she's splendid. Las' week I had to take some of our
+pore boys to de hospital, an' she war dere, lookin' sweet an' putty ez
+an angel, a nussin' dem pore boys, an' ez good to one ez de oder. It
+looks to me ez ef dey ralely lob'd her shadder. She sits by 'em so
+patient, an' writes 'em sech nice letters to der frens, an' yit she
+looks so heart-broke an' pitiful, it jis' gits to me, an' makes me mos'
+ready to cry. I'm so glad dat Marse Tom had to gib her up. He war too
+mean to eat good victuals."
+
+"He ought," said Robert, "to be made to live on herrings' heads and cold
+potatoes. It makes my blood boil just to think that he was going to have
+that lovely looking young girl whipped for his devilment. He ought to be
+ashamed to hold up his head among respectable people."
+
+"I tell you, Bob, de debil will neber git his own till he gits him. When
+I seed how he war treating her I neber rested till I got her away. He
+buyed her, he said, for his housekeeper; as many gals as dere war on de
+plantation, why didn't he git one ob dem to keep house, an' not dat nice
+lookin' young lady? Her han's look ez ef she neber did a day's work in
+her life. One day when he com'd down to breakfas,' he chucked her under
+de chin, an' tried to put his arm roun' her waist. But she jis' frew it
+off like a chunk ob fire. She looked like a snake had bit her. Her eyes
+fairly spit fire. Her face got red ez blood, an' den she turned so pale
+I thought she war gwine to faint, but she didn't, an' I yered her say,
+'I'll die fust.' I war mad 'nough to stan' on my head. I could hab
+tore'd him all to pieces wen he said he'd hab her whipped."
+
+"Did he do it?"
+
+"I don't know. But he's mean 'nough to do enythin'. Why, dey say she
+war sole seben times in six weeks, 'cause she's so putty, but dat she
+war game to de las'."
+
+"Well, Tom," said Robert, "getting that girl away was one of the best
+things you ever did in your life."
+
+"I think so, too. Not dat I specs enytin' ob it. I don't spose she would
+think ob an ugly chap like me; but it does me good to know dat Marse Tom
+ain't got her."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI.
+
+
+ROBERT JOHNSON'S PROMOTION AND RELIGION.
+
+Robert Johnson, being able to meet the army requirements, was enlisted
+as a substitute to help fill out the quota of a Northern regiment. With
+his intelligence, courage, and prompt obedience, he rose from the ranks
+and became lieutenant of a colored company. He was daring, without being
+rash; prompt, but not thoughtless; firm, without being harsh. Kind and
+devoted to the company he drilled, he soon won the respect of his
+superior officers and the love of his comrades.
+
+"Johnson," said a young officer, Captain Sybil, of Maine, who had become
+attached to Robert, "what is the use of your saying you're a colored
+man, when you are as white as I am, and as brave a man as there is among
+us. Why not quit this company, and take your place in the army just the
+same as a white man? I know your chances for promotion would be better."
+
+"Captain, you may doubt my word, but to-day I would rather be a
+lieutenant in my company than a captain in yours."
+
+"I don't understand you."
+
+"Well, Captain, when a man's been colored all his life it comes a little
+hard for him to get white all at once. Were I to try it, I would feel
+like a cat in a strange garret. Captain, I think my place is where I am
+most needed. You do not need me in your ranks, and my company does.
+They are excellent fighters, but they need a leader. To silence a
+battery, to capture a flag, to take a fortification, they will rush into
+the jaws of death."
+
+"Yes, I have often wondered at their bravery."
+
+"Captain, these battles put them on their mettle. They have been so long
+taught that they are nothing and nobody, that they seem glad to prove
+they are something and somebody."
+
+"But, Johnson, you do not look like them, you do not talk like them. It
+is a burning shame to have held such a man as you in slavery."
+
+"I don't think it was any worse to have held me in slavery than the
+blackest man in the South."
+
+"You are right, Johnson. The color of a man's skin has nothing to do
+with the possession of his rights."
+
+"Now, there is Tom Anderson," said Robert, "he is just as black as black
+can be. He has been bought and sold like a beast, and yet there is not a
+braver man in all the company. I know him well. He is a noble-hearted
+fellow. True as steel. I love him like a brother. And I believe Tom
+would risk his life for me any day. He don't know anything about his
+father or mother. He was sold from them before he could remember. He can
+read a little. He used to take lessons from a white gardener in
+Virginia. He would go between the hours of 9 P.M. and 4 A.M. He got a
+book of his own, tore it up, greased the pages, and hid them in his hat.
+Then if his master had ever knocked his hat off he would have thought
+them greasy papers, and not that Tom was carrying his library on his
+head. I had another friend who lived near us. When he was nineteen
+years old he did not know how many letters there were in the ABC's. One
+night, when his work was done, his boss came into his cabin and saw him
+with a book in his hand. He threatened to give him five hundred lashes
+if he caught him again with a book, and said he hadn't work enough to
+do. He was getting out logs, and his task was ten logs a day. His
+employer threatened to increase it to twelve. He said it just harassed
+him; it set him on fire. He thought there must be something good in that
+book if the white man didn't want him to learn. One day he had an errand
+in the kitchen, and he heard one of the colored girls going over the
+ABC's. Here was the key to the forbidden knowledge. She had heard the
+white children saying them, and picked them up by heart, but did not
+know them by sight. He was not content with that, but sold his cap for a
+book and wore a cloth on his head instead. He got the sounds of the
+letters by heart, then cut off the bark of a tree, carved the letters on
+the smooth inside, and learned them. He wanted to learn how to write. He
+had charge of a warehouse where he had a chance to see the size and form
+of letters. He made the beach of the river his copybook, and thus he
+learned to write. Tom never got very far with his learning, but I used
+to get the papers and tell him all I knew about the war."
+
+"How did you get the papers?"
+
+"I used to have very good privileges for a slave. All of our owners were
+not alike. Some of them were quite clever, and others were worse than
+git out. I used to get the morning papers to sell to the boarders and
+others, and when I got them I would contrive to hide a paper, and let
+some of the fellow-servants know how things were going on. And our
+owners thought we cared nothing about what was going on."
+
+"How was that? I thought you were not allowed to hold meetings unless a
+white man were present."
+
+"That was so. But we contrived to hold secret meetings in spite of their
+caution. We knew whom we could trust. My ole Miss wasn't mean like some
+of them. She never wanted the patrollers around prowling in our cabins,
+and poking their noses into our business. Her husband was an awful
+drunkard. He ran through every cent he could lay his hands on, and she
+was forced to do something to keep the wolf from the door, so she set up
+a boarding-house. But she didn't take in Tom, Dick, and Harry. Nobody
+but the big bugs stopped with her. She taught me to read and write, and
+to cast up accounts. It was so handy for her to have some one who could
+figure up her accounts, and read or write a note, if she were from home
+and wanted the like done. She once told her cousin how I could write and
+figure up. And what do you think her cousin said?"
+
+"'Pleased,' I suppose, 'to hear it.'"
+
+"Not a bit of it. She said, if I belonged to her, she would cut off my
+thumbs; her husband said, 'Oh, then he couldn't pick cotton.' As to my
+poor thumbs, it did not seem to be taken into account what it would cost
+me to lose them. My ole Miss used to have a lot of books. She would let
+me read any one of them except a novel. She wanted to take care of my
+soul, but she wasn't taking care of her own."
+
+"Wasn't she religious?"
+
+"She went for it. I suppose she was as good as most of them. She said
+her prayers and went to church, but I don't know that that made her any
+better. I never did take much stock in white folks' religion."
+
+"Why, Robert, I'm afraid you are something of an infidel."
+
+"No, Captain, I believe in the real, genuine religion. I ain't got much
+myself, but I respect them that have. We had on our place a dear, old
+saint, named Aunt Kizzy. She was a happy soul. She had seen hard times,
+but was what I call a living epistle. I've heard her tell how her only
+child had been sold from her, when the man who bought herself did not
+want to buy her child. Poor little fellow! he was only two years old. I
+asked her one day how she felt when her child was taken away. 'I felt,'
+she said, 'as if I was going to my grave. But I knew if I couldn't get
+justice here, I could get it in another world.'"
+
+"That was faith," said Captain Sybil, as if speaking to himself, "a
+patient waiting for death to redress the wrongs of life."
+
+"Many a time," continued Robert, "have I heard her humming to herself in
+the kitchen and saying, 'I has my trials, ups and downs, but it won't
+allers be so. I specs one day to wing and wing wid de angels,
+Hallelujah! Den I specs to hear a voice sayin', "Poor ole Kizzy, she's
+done de bes' she kin. Go down, Gabriel, an' tote her in." Den I specs to
+put on my golden slippers, my long white robe, an' my starry crown, an'
+walk dem golden streets, Hallelujah!' I've known that dear, old soul to
+travel going on two miles, after her work was done, to have some one
+read to her. Her favorite chapter began with, 'Let not your heart be
+troubled, ye believe in God, believe also in Me.'"
+
+"I have been deeply impressed," said Captain Sybil, "with the child-like
+faith of some of these people. I do not mean to say that they are
+consistent Christians, but I do think that this faith has in a measure
+underlain the life of the race. It has been a golden thread woven amid
+the sombre tissues of their lives. A ray of light shimmering amid the
+gloom of their condition. And what would they have been without it?"
+
+"I don't know. But I know what she was with it. And I believe if there
+are any saints in glory, Aunt Kizzy is one of them."
+
+"She is dead, then?"
+
+"Yes, went all right, singing and rejoicing until the last,
+'Troubles over, troubles over, and den my troubles will be over. We'll
+walk de golden streets all 'roun' in de New Jerusalem.' Now, Captain,
+that's the kind of religion that I want. Not that kind which could ride
+to church on Sundays, and talk so solemn with the minister about heaven
+and good things, then come home and light down on the servants like a
+thousand of bricks. I have no use for it. I don't believe in it. I never
+did and I never will. If any man wants to save my soul he ain't got to
+beat my body. That ain't the kind of religion I'm looking for. I ain't
+got a bit of use for it. Now, Captain, ain't I right?"
+
+"Well, yes, Robert, I think you are more than half right. You ought to
+know my dear, old mother who lives in Maine. We have had colored company
+at our house, and I never saw her show the least difference between her
+colored and white guests. She is a Quaker preacher, and don't believe
+in war, but when the rest of the young men went to the front, I wanted
+to go also. So I thought it all over, and there seemed to be no way out
+of slavery except through the war. I had been taught to hate war and
+detest slavery. Now the time had come when I could not help the war, but
+I could strike a blow for freedom. So I told my mother I was going to
+the front, that I expected to be killed, but I went to free the slave.
+It went hard with her. But I thought that I ought to come, and I believe
+my mother's prayers are following me."
+
+"Captain," said Robert, rising, "I am glad that I have heard your story.
+I think that some of these Northern soldiers do two things--hate slavery
+and hate niggers."
+
+"I am afraid that is so with some of them. They would rather be whipped
+by Rebels than conquer with negroes. Oh, I heard a soldier," said
+Captain Sybil, "say, when the colored men were being enlisted, that he
+would break his sword and resign. But he didn't do either. After Colonel
+Shaw led his charge at Fort Wagner, and died in the conflict, he got
+bravely over his prejudices. The conduct of the colored troops there and
+elsewhere has done much to turn public opinion in their favor. I suppose
+any white soldier would rather have his black substitute receive the
+bullets than himself."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+TOM ANDERSON'S DEATH.
+
+"Where is Tom?" asked Captain Sybil; "I have not seen him for several
+hours."
+
+"He's gone down the sound with some of the soldiers," replied Robert.
+"They wanted Tom to row them."
+
+"I am afraid those boys will get into trouble, and the Rebs will pick
+them off," responded Sybil.
+
+"O, I hope not," answered Robert.
+
+"I hope not, too; but those boys are too venturesome."
+
+"Tom knows the lay of the land better than any of us," said Robert. "He
+is the most wide-awake and gamiest man I know. I reckon when the war is
+over Tom will be a preacher. Did you ever hear him pray?"
+
+"No; is he good at that?"
+
+"First-rate," continued Robert. "It would do you good to hear him. He
+don't allow any cursing and swearing when he's around. And what he says
+is law and gospel with the boys. But he's so good-natured; and they
+can't get mad at him."
+
+"Yes, Robert, there is not a man in our regiment I would sooner trust
+than Tom. Last night, when he brought in that wounded scout, he couldn't
+have been more tender if he had been a woman. How gratefully the poor
+fellow looked in Tom's face as he laid him down so carefully and
+staunched the blood which had been spurting out of him. Tom seemed to
+know it was an artery which had been cut, and he did just the right
+thing to stop the bleeding. He knew there wasn't a moment to be lost. He
+wasn't going to wait for the doctor. I have often heard that colored
+people are ungrateful, but I don't think Tom's worst enemy would say
+that about him."
+
+"Captain," said Robert, with a tone of bitterness in his voice, "what
+had we to be grateful for? For ages of poverty, ignorance, and slavery?
+I think if anybody should be grateful, it is the people who have
+enslaved us and lived off our labor for generations. Captain, I used to
+know a poor old woman who couldn't bear to hear any one play on the
+piano."
+
+"Is that so? Why, I always heard that colored people were a musical
+race."
+
+"So we are; but that poor woman's daughter was sold, and her mistress
+took the money to buy a piano. Her mother could never bear to hear a
+sound from it."
+
+"Poor woman!" exclaimed Captain Sybil, sympathetically; "I suppose it
+seemed as if the wail of her daughter was blending with the tones of the
+instrument. I think, Robert, there is a great deal more in the colored
+people than we give them credit for. Did you know Captain Sellers?"
+
+"The officer who escaped from prison and got back to our lines?" asked
+Robert.
+
+"Yes. Well, he had quite an experience in trying to escape. He came to
+an aged couple, who hid him in their cabin and shared their humble food
+with him. They gave him some corn-bread, bacon, and coffee which he
+thought was made of scorched bran. But he said that he never ate a meal
+that he relished more than the one he took with them. Just before he
+went they knelt down and prayed with him. It seemed as if his very hair
+stood on his head, their prayer was so solemn. As he was going away the
+man took some shingles and nailed them on his shoes to throw the
+bloodhounds off his track. I don't think he will ever cease to feel
+kindly towards colored people. I do wonder what has become of the boys?
+What can keep them so long?"
+
+Just as Captain Sybil and Robert were wondering at the delay of Tom and
+the soldiers they heard the measured tread of men who were slowly
+bearing a burden. They were carrying Tom Anderson to the hospital,
+fearfully wounded, and nigh to death. His face was distorted, and the
+blood was streaming from his wounds. His respiration was faint, his
+pulse hurried, as if life were trembling on its frailest cords.
+
+Robert and Captain Sybil hastened at once towards the wounded man. On
+Robert's face was a look of intense anguish, as he bent pityingly over
+his friend.
+
+"O, this is dreadful! How did it happen?" cried Robert.
+
+Captain Sybil, pressing anxiously forward, repeated Robert's question.
+
+"Captain," said one of the young soldiers, advancing and saluting his
+superior officer, "we were all in the boat when it struck against a mud
+bank, and there was not strength enough among us to shove her back into
+the water. Just then the Rebels opened fire upon us. For awhile we lay
+down in the boat, but still they kept firing. Tom took in the whole
+situation, and said: 'Someone must die to get us out of this. I
+mought's well be him as any. You are soldiers and can fight. If they
+kill me, it is nuthin'.' So Tom leaped out to shove the boat into the
+water. Just then the Rebel bullets began to rain around him. He received
+seven or eight of them, and I'm afraid there is no hope for him."
+
+"O, Tom, I wish you hadn't gone. O, Tom! Tom!" cried Robert, in tones of
+agony.
+
+A gleam of grateful recognition passed over the drawn features of Tom,
+as the wail of his friend fell on his ear. He attempted to speak, but
+the words died upon his lips, and he became unconscious.
+
+"Well," said Captain Sybil, "put him in one of the best wards. Give him
+into Miss Leroy's care. If good nursing can win him back to life, he
+shall not want for any care or pains that she can bestow. Send
+immediately for Dr. Gresham."
+
+Robert followed his friend into the hospital, tenderly and carefully
+helped to lay him down, and remained awhile, gazing in silent grief upon
+the sufferer. Then he turned to go, leaving him in the hands of Iola,
+but hoping against hope that his wounds would not be fatal.
+
+With tender devotion Iola watched her faithful friend. He recognized her
+when restored to consciousness, and her presence was as balm to his
+wounds. He smiled faintly, took her hand in his, stroked it tenderly,
+looked wistfully into her face, and said, "Miss Iola, I ain't long fer
+dis! I'se 'most home!"
+
+"Oh, no," said Iola, "I hope that you will soon get over this trouble,
+and live many long and happy days."
+
+"No, Miss Iola, it's all ober wid me. I'se gwine to glory; gwine to
+glory; gwine to ring dem charmin' bells. Tell all de boys to meet me in
+heben; dat dey mus' 'list in de hebenly war."
+
+"O, Mr. Tom," said Iola, tenderly, "do not talk of leaving me. You are
+the best friend I have had since I was torn from my mother. I should be
+so lonely without you."
+
+"Dere's a frien' dat sticks closer dan a brudder. He will be wid yer in
+de sixt' trial, an' in de sebbent' he'll not fo'sake yer."
+
+"Yes," answered Iola, "I know that. He is all our dependence. But I
+can't help grieving when I see you suffering so. But, dear friend, be
+quiet, and try to go to sleep."
+
+"I'll do enythin' fer yer, Miss Iola."
+
+Tom closed his eyes and lay quiet. Tenderly and anxiously Iola watched
+over him as the hours waned away. The doctor came, shook his head
+gravely, and, turning to Iola, said, "There is no hope, but do what you
+can to alleviate his sufferings."
+
+As Iola gazed upon the kind but homely features of Tom, she saw his eyes
+open and an unexpressed desire upon his face.
+
+Tenderly and sadly bending over him, with tears in her dark, luminous
+eyes, she said, "Is there anything I can do for you?"
+
+"Yes," said Tom, with laboring breath; "let me hole yore han', an' sing
+'Ober Jordan inter glory' an' 'We'll anchor bye and bye.'"
+
+Iola laid her hand gently in the rough palm of the dying man, and, with
+a tremulous voice, sang the parting hymns.
+
+Tenderly she wiped the death damps from his dusky brow, and imprinted
+upon it a farewell kiss. Gratitude and affection lit up the dying eye,
+which seemed to be gazing into the eternities. Just then Robert entered
+the room, and, seating himself quietly by Tom's bedside, read the death
+signs in his face.
+
+"Good-bye, Robert," said Tom, "meet me in de kingdom." Suddenly a look
+of recognition and rapture lit up his face, and he murmured, "Angels,
+bright angels, all's well, all's well!"
+
+Slowly his hand released its pressure, a peaceful calm overspread his
+countenance, and without a sigh or murmur Thomas Anderson, Iola's
+faithful and devoted friend, passed away, leaving the world so much
+poorer for her than it was before. Just then Dr. Gresham, the hospital
+physician, came to the bedside, felt for the pulse which would never
+throb again, and sat down in silence by the cot.
+
+"What do you think, Doctor," said Iola, "has he fainted?"
+
+"No," said the doctor, "poor fellow! he is dead."
+
+Iola bowed her head in silent sorrow, and then relieved the anguish of
+her heart by a flood of tears. Robert rose, and sorrowfully left the
+room.
+
+Iola, with tearful eyes and aching heart, clasped the cold hands over
+the still breast, closed the waxen lid over the eye which had once
+beamed with kindness or flashed with courage, and then went back, after
+the burial, to her daily round of duties, feeling the sad missing of
+something from her life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+THE MYSTIFIED DOCTOR.
+
+"Colonel," said Dr. Gresham to Col. Robinson, the commander of the post,
+"I am perfectly mystified by Miss Leroy."
+
+"What is the matter with her?" asked Col. Robinson. "Is she not faithful
+to her duties and obedient to your directions?"
+
+"Faithful is not the word to express her tireless energy and devotion to
+her work," responded Dr. Gresham. "She must have been a born nurse to
+put such enthusiasm into her work."
+
+"Why, Doctor, what is the matter with you? You talk like a lover."
+
+A faint flush rose to the cheek of Dr. Gresham as he smiled, and said,
+"Oh! come now, Colonel, can't a man praise a woman without being in love
+with her?"
+
+"Of course he can," said Col. Robinson; "but I know where such
+admiration is apt to lead. I've been there myself. But, Doctor, had you
+not better defer your love-making till you're out of the woods?"
+
+"I assure you, Colonel, I am not thinking of love or courtship. That is
+the business of the drawing-room, and not of the camp. But she did
+mystify me last night."
+
+"How so?" asked Col. Robinson.
+
+"When Tom was dying," responded the doctor, "I saw that beautiful and
+refined young lady bend over and kiss him. When she found that he was
+dead, she just cried as if her heart was breaking. Well, that was a new
+thing to me. I can eat with colored people, walk, talk, and fight with
+them, but kissing them is something I don't hanker after."
+
+"And yet you saw Miss Leroy do it?"
+
+"Yes; and that puzzles me. She is one of the most refined and lady-like
+women I ever saw. I hear she is a refugee, but she does not look like
+the other refugees who have come to our camp. Her accent is slightly
+Southern, but her manner is Northern. She is self-respecting without
+being supercilious; quiet, without being dull. Her voice is low and
+sweet, yet at times there are tones of such passionate tenderness in it
+that you would think some great sorrow has darkened and overshadowed her
+life. Without being the least gloomy, her face at times is pervaded by
+an air of inexpressible sadness. I sometimes watch her when she is not
+aware that I am looking at her, and it seems as if a whole volume was
+depicted on her countenance. When she smiles, there is a longing in her
+eyes which is never satisfied. I cannot understand how a Southern lady,
+whose education and manners stamp her as a woman of fine culture and
+good breeding, could consent to occupy the position she so faithfully
+holds. It is a mystery I cannot solve. Can you?"
+
+"I think I can," answered Col. Robinson.
+
+"Will you tell me?" queried the doctor.
+
+"Yes, on one condition."
+
+"What is it?"
+
+"Everlasting silence."
+
+"I promise," said the doctor. "The secret between us shall be as deep as
+the sea."
+
+"She has not requested secrecy, but at present, for her sake, I do not
+wish the secret revealed. Miss Leroy was a slave."
+
+"Oh, no," said Dr. Gresham, starting to his feet, "it can't be so! A
+woman as white as she a slave?"
+
+"Yes, it is so," continued the Colonel. "In these States the child
+follows the condition of its mother. This beautiful and accomplished
+girl was held by one of the worst Rebels in town. Tom told me of it and
+I issued orders for her release."
+
+"Well, well! Is that so?" said Dr. Gresham, thoughtfully stroking his
+beard. "Wonders will never cease. Why, I was just beginning to think
+seriously of her."
+
+"What's to hinder your continuing to think?" asked Col. Robinson.
+
+"What you tell me changes the whole complexion of affairs," replied the
+doctor.
+
+"If that be so I am glad I told you before you got head over heels in
+love."
+
+"Yes," said Dr. Gresham, absently.
+
+Dr. Gresham was a member of a wealthy and aristocratic family, proud of
+its lineage, which it could trace through generations of good blood to
+its ancestral isle. He had become deeply interested in Iola before he
+had heard her story, but after it had been revealed to him he tried to
+banish her from his mind; but his constant observation of her only
+increased his interest and admiration. The deep pathos of her story, the
+tenderness of her ministrations, bestowed alike on black and white, and
+the sad loneliness of her condition, awakened within him a desire to
+defend and protect her all through her future life. The fierce clashing
+of war had not taken all the romance out of his nature. In Iola he saw
+realized his ideal of the woman whom he was willing to marry. A woman,
+tender, strong, and courageous, and rescued only by the strong arm of
+his Government from a fate worse than death. She was young in years, but
+old in sorrow; one whom a sad destiny had changed from a light-hearted
+girl to a heroic woman. As he observed her, he detected an undertone of
+sorrow in her most cheerful words, and observed a quick flushing and
+sudden paling of her cheek, as if she were living over scenes that were
+thrilling her soul with indignation or chilling her heart with horror.
+As nurse and physician, Iola and Dr. Gresham were constantly thrown
+together. His friends sent him magazines and books, which he gladly
+shared with her. The hospital was a sad place. Mangled forms, stricken
+down in the flush of their prime and energy; pale young corpses,
+sacrificed on the altar of slavery, constantly drained on her
+sympathies. Dr. Gresham was glad to have some reading matter which might
+divert her mind from the memories of her mournful past, and also furnish
+them both with interesting themes of conversation in their moments of
+relaxation from the harrowing scenes through which they were constantly
+passing. Without any effort or consciousness on her part, his friendship
+ripened into love. To him her presence was a pleasure, her absence a
+privation; and her loneliness drew deeply upon his sympathy. He would
+have merited his own self-contempt if, by word or deed, he had done
+anything to take advantage of her situation. All the manhood and
+chivalry of his nature rose in her behalf, and, after carefully
+revolving the matter, he resolved to win her for his bride, bury her
+secret in his Northern home, and hide from his aristocratic relations
+all knowledge of her mournful past. One day he said to Iola:--
+
+"This hospital life is telling on you. Your strength is failing, and
+although you possess a wonderful amount of physical endurance, you must
+not forget that saints have bodies and dwell in tabernacles of clay,
+just the same as we common mortals."
+
+"Compliments aside," she said, smiling; "what are you driving at,
+Doctor?"
+
+"I mean," he replied, "that you are running down, and if you do not quit
+and take some rest you will be our patient instead of our nurse. You'd
+better take a furlough, go North, and return after the first frost."
+
+"Doctor, if that is your only remedy," replied Iola, "I am afraid that I
+am destined to die at my post. I have no special friends in the North,
+and no home but this in the South. I am homeless and alone."
+
+There was something so sad, almost despairing in her tones, in the
+drooping of her head, and the quivering of her lip, that they stirred
+Dr. Gresham's heart with sudden pity, and, drawing nearer to her, he
+said, "Miss Leroy, you need not be all alone. Let me claim the privilege
+of making your life bright and happy. Iola, I have loved you ever since
+I have seen your devotion to our poor, sick boys. How faithfully you, a
+young and gracious girl, have stood at your post and performed your
+duties. And now I ask, will you not permit me to clasp hands with you
+for life? I do not ask for a hasty reply. Give yourself time to think
+over what I have proposed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+EUGENE LEROY AND ALFRED LORRAINE.
+
+Nearly twenty years before the war, two young men, of French and Spanish
+descent, sat conversing on a large verandah which surrounded an ancient
+home on the Mississippi River. It was French in its style of
+architecture, large and rambling, with no hint of modern improvements.
+
+The owner of the house was the only heir of a Creole planter. He had
+come into possession of an inheritance consisting of vast baronial
+estates, bank stock, and a large number of slaves. Eugene Leroy, being
+deprived of his parents, was left, at an early age, to the care of a
+distant relative, who had sent him to school and college, and who
+occasionally invited him to spend his vacations at his home. But Eugene
+generally declined his invitations, as he preferred spending his
+vacations at the watering places in the North, with their fashionable
+and not always innocent gayeties. Young, vivacious, impulsive, and
+undisciplined, without the restraining influence of a mother's love or
+the guidance of a father's hand, Leroy found himself, when his college
+days were over, in the dangerous position of a young man with vast
+possessions, abundant leisure, unsettled principles, and uncontrolled
+desires. He had no other object than to extract from life its most
+seductive draughts of ease and pleasure. His companion, who sat opposite
+him on the verandah, quietly smoking a cigar, was a remote cousin, a
+few years older than himself, the warmth of whose Southern temperament
+had been modified by an infusion of Northern blood.
+
+Eugene was careless, liberal, and impatient of details, while his
+companion and cousin, Alfred Lorraine, was selfish, eager, keen, and
+alert; also hard, cold, methodical, and ever ready to grasp the main
+chance. Yet, notwithstanding the difference between them, they had
+formed a warm friendship for each other.
+
+"Alfred," said Eugene, "I am going to be married."
+
+Lorraine opened his eyes with sudden wonder, and exclaimed: "Well,
+that's the latest thing out! Who is the fortunate lady who has bound you
+with her silken fetters? Is it one of those beautiful Creole girls who
+were visiting Augustine's plantation last winter? I watched you during
+our visit there and thought that you could not be proof against their
+attractions. Which is your choice? It would puzzle me to judge between
+the two. They had splendid eyes, dark, luminous, and languishing; lovely
+complexions and magnificent hair. Both were delightful in their manners,
+refined and cultured, with an air of vivacity mingled with their repose
+of manner which was perfectly charming. As the law only allows us one,
+which is your choice? Miss Annette has more force than her sister, and
+if I could afford the luxury of a wife she would be my choice."
+
+"Ah, Alf," said Eugene, "I see that you are a practical business man. In
+marrying you want a wife to assist you as an efficient plantation
+mistress. One who would tolerate no waste in the kitchen and no disorder
+in the parlor."
+
+"Exactly so," responded Lorraine; "I am too poor to marry a mere parlor
+ornament. You can afford to do it; I cannot."
+
+"Nonsense, if I were as poor as a church mouse I would marry the woman I
+love."
+
+"Very fine sentiments," said Lorraine, "and were I as rich as you I
+would indulge in them also. You know, when my father died I had great
+expectations. We had always lived in good style, and I never thought for
+a moment he was not a rich man, but when his estate was settled I found
+it was greatly involved, and I was forced to face an uncertain future,
+with scarcely a dollar to call my own. Land, negroes, cattle, and horses
+all went under the hammer. The only thing I retained was the education I
+received at the North; that was my father's best investment, and all my
+stock in trade. With that only as an outfit, it would be madness for me
+to think of marrying one of those lovely girls. They remind me of
+beautiful canary birds, charming and pretty, but not fitted for the wear
+and tear of plantation life. Well, which is your choice?"
+
+"Neither," replied Eugene.
+
+"Then, is it that magnificent looking widow from New Orleans, whom we
+met before you had that terrible spell of sickness and to whom you
+appeared so devoted?"
+
+"Not at all. I have not heard from her since that summer. She was
+fascinating and handsome, but fearfully high strung."
+
+"Were you afraid of her?"
+
+"No; but I valued my happiness too much to trust it in her hands."
+
+"Sour grapes!" said Lorraine.
+
+"No! but I think that slavery and the lack of outside interests are
+beginning to tell on the lives of our women. They lean too much on their
+slaves, have too much irresponsible power in their hands, are narrowed
+and compressed by the routine of plantation life and the lack of
+intellectual stimulus."
+
+"Yes, Eugene, when I see what other women are doing in the fields of
+literature and art, I cannot help thinking an amount of brain power has
+been held in check among us. Yet I cannot abide those Northern women,
+with their suffrage views and abolition cant. They just shock me."
+
+"But your mother was a Northern woman," said Eugene.
+
+"Yes; but she got bravely over her Northern ideas. As I remember her,
+she was just as much a Southerner as if she had been to the manor born.
+She came here as a school-teacher, but soon after she came she married
+my father. He was easy and indulgent with his servants, and held them
+with a very loose rein. But my mother was firm and energetic. She made
+the niggers move around. No shirking nor dawdling with her. When my
+father died, she took matters in hand, but she only outlived him a few
+months. If she had lived I believe that she would have retrieved our
+fortune. I know that she had more executive ability than my father. He
+was very squeamish about selling his servants, but she would have put
+every one of them in her pocket before permitting them to eat her out of
+house and home. But whom _are_ you going to marry?"
+
+"A young lady who graduates from a Northern seminary next week,"
+responded Eugene.
+
+"I think you are very selfish," said Lorraine. "You might have invited
+a fellow to go with you to be your best man."
+
+"The wedding is to be strictly private. The lady whom I am to marry has
+negro blood in her veins."
+
+"The devil she has!" exclaimed Lorraine, starting to his feet, and
+looking incredulously on the face of Leroy. "Are you in earnest? Surely
+you must be jesting."
+
+"I am certainly in earnest," answered Eugene Leroy. "I mean every word I
+say."
+
+"Oh, it can't be possible! Are you mad?" exclaimed Lorraine.
+
+"Never was saner in my life."
+
+"What under heaven could have possessed you to do such a foolish thing?
+Where did she come from."
+
+"Right here, on this plantation. But I have educated and manumitted her,
+and I intend marrying her."
+
+"Why, Eugene, it is impossible that you can have an idea of marrying one
+of your slaves. Why, man, she is your property, to have and to hold to
+all intents and purposes. Are you not satisfied with the power and
+possession the law gives you?"
+
+"No. Although the law makes her helpless in my hands, to me her
+defenselessness is her best defense."
+
+"Eugene, we have known each other all of our lives, and, although I have
+always regarded you as eccentric, I never saw you so completely off your
+balance before. The idea of you, with your proud family name, your vast
+wealth in land and negroes, intending to marry one of them, is a mystery
+I cannot solve. Do explain to me why you are going to take this
+extremely strange and foolish step."
+
+"You never saw Marie?"
+
+"No; and I don't want to."
+
+"She is very beautiful. In the North no one would suspect that she has
+one drop of negro blood in her veins, but here, where I am known, to
+marry her is to lose caste. I could live with her, and not incur much if
+any social opprobrium. Society would wink at the transgression, even if
+after she had become the mother of my children I should cast her off and
+send her and them to the auction block."
+
+"Men," replied Lorraine, "would merely shrug their shoulders; women
+would say you had been sowing your wild oats. Your money, like charity,
+would cover a multitude of faults."
+
+"But if I make her my lawful wife and recognize her children as my
+legitimate heirs, I subject myself to social ostracism and a senseless
+persecution. We Americans boast of freedom, and yet here is a woman whom
+I love as I never loved any other human being, but both law and public
+opinion debar me from following the inclination of my heart. She is
+beautiful, faithful, and pure, and yet all that society will tolerate is
+what I would scorn to do."
+
+"But has not society the right to guard the purity of its blood by the
+rigid exclusion of an alien race?"
+
+"Excluding it! How?" asked Eugene.
+
+"By debarring it from social intercourse."
+
+"Perhaps it has," continued Eugene, "but should not society have a
+greater ban for those who, by consorting with an alien race, rob their
+offspring of a right to their names and to an inheritance in their
+property, and who fix their social status among an enslaved and outcast
+race? Don't eye me so curiously; I am not losing my senses."
+
+"I think you have done that already," said Lorraine. "Don't you know
+that if she is as fair as a lily, beautiful as a houri, and chaste as
+ice, that still she is a negro?"
+
+"Oh, come now; she isn't much of a negro."
+
+"It doesn't matter, however. One drop of negro blood in her veins curses
+all the rest."
+
+"I know it," said Eugene, sadly, "but I have weighed the consequences,
+and am prepared to take them."
+
+"Well, Eugene, your course is _so_ singular! I do wish that you would
+tell me why you take this unprecedented step?"
+
+Eugene laid aside his cigar, looked thoughtfully at Lorraine, and said,
+"Well, Alfred, as we are kinsmen and life-long friends, I will not
+resent your asking my reason for doing that which seems to you the
+climax of absurdity, and if you will have the patience to listen I will
+tell you."
+
+"Proceed, I am all attention."
+
+"My father died," said Eugene, "as you know, when I was too young to
+know his loss or feel his care and, being an only child, I was petted
+and spoiled. I grew up to be wayward, self-indulgent, proud, and
+imperious. I went from home and made many friends both at college and in
+foreign lands. I was well supplied with money and, never having been
+forced to earn it, was ignorant of its value and careless of its use. My
+lavish expenditures and liberal benefactions attracted to me a number
+of parasites, and men older than myself led me into the paths of vice,
+and taught me how to gather the flowers of sin which blossom around the
+borders of hell. In a word, I left my home unwarned and unarmed against
+the seductions of vice. I returned an initiated devotee to debasing
+pleasures. Years of my life were passed in foreign lands; years in which
+my soul slumbered and seemed pervaded with a moral paralysis; years, the
+memory of which fills my soul with sorrow and shame. I went to the
+capitals of the old world to see life, but in seeing life I became
+acquainted with death, the death of true manliness and self-respect. You
+look astonished; but I tell you, Alf, there is many a poor clod-hopper,
+on whom are the dust and grime of unremitting toil, who feels more
+self-respect and true manliness than many of us with our family
+prestige, social position, and proud ancestral halls. After I had lived
+abroad for years, I returned a broken-down young man, prematurely old,
+my constitution a perfect wreck. A life of folly and dissipation was
+telling fearfully upon me. My friends shrank from me in dismay. I was
+sick nigh unto death, and had it not been for Marie's care I am certain
+that I should have died. She followed me down to the borders of the
+grave, and won me back to life and health. I was slow in recovering and,
+during the time, I had ample space for reflection, and the past unrolled
+itself before me. I resolved, over the wreck and ruin of my past life,
+to build a better and brighter future. Marie had a voice of remarkable
+sweetness, although it lacked culture. Often when I was nervous and
+restless I would have her sing some of those weird and plaintive
+melodies which she had learned from the plantation negroes. Sometimes I
+encouraged her to talk, and I was surprised at the native vigor of her
+intellect. By degrees I became acquainted with her history. She was all
+alone in the world. She had no recollection of her father, but
+remembered being torn from her mother while clinging to her dress. The
+trader who bought her mother did not wish to buy her. She remembered
+having a brother, with whom she used to play, but she had been separated
+from him also, and since then had lost all trace of them. After she was
+sold from her mother she became the property of an excellent old lady,
+who seems to have been very careful to imbue her mind with good
+principles; a woman who loved purity, not only for her own daughters,
+but also for the defenseless girls in her home. I believe it was the
+lady's intention to have freed Marie at her death, but she died
+suddenly, and, the estate being involved, she was sold with it and fell
+into the hands of my agent. I became deeply interested in her when I
+heard her story, and began to pity her."
+
+"And I suppose love sprang from pity."
+
+"I not only pitied her, but I learned to respect her. I had met with
+beautiful women in the halls of wealth and fashion, both at home and
+abroad, but there was something in her different from all my experience
+of womanhood."
+
+"I should think so," said Lorraine, with a sneer; "but I should like to
+know what it was."
+
+"It was something such as I have seen in old cathedrals, lighting up the
+beauty of a saintly face. A light which the poet tells was never seen on
+land or sea. I thought of this beautiful and defenseless girl adrift in
+the power of a reckless man, who, with all the advantages of wealth and
+education, had trailed his manhood in the dust, and she, with simple,
+childlike faith in the Unseen, seemed to be so good and pure that she
+commanded my respect and won my heart. In her presence every base and
+unholy passion died, subdued by the supremacy of her virtue."
+
+"Why, Eugene, what has come over you? Talking of the virtue of these
+quadroon girls! You have lived so long in the North and abroad, that you
+seem to have lost the cue of our Southern life. Don't you know that
+these beautiful girls have been the curse of our homes? You have no idea
+of the hearts which are wrung by their presence."
+
+"But, Alfred, suppose it is so. Are they to blame for it? What can any
+woman do when she is placed in the hands of an irresponsible master;
+when she knows that resistance is vain? Yes, Alfred, I agree with you,
+these women are the bane of our Southern civilization; but they are the
+victims and we are the criminals."
+
+"I think from the airs that some of them put on when they get a chance,
+that they are very willing victims."
+
+"So much the worse for our institution. If it is cruel to debase a
+hapless victim, it is an increase of cruelty to make her contented with
+her degradation. Let me tell you, Alf, you cannot wrong or degrade a
+woman without wronging or degrading yourself."
+
+"What is the matter with you, Eugene? Are you thinking of taking
+priest's orders?"
+
+"No, Alf," said Eugene, rising and rapidly pacing the floor, "you may
+defend the system as much as you please, but you cannot deny that the
+circumstances it creates, and the temptations it affords, are sapping
+our strength and undermining our character."
+
+"That may be true," said Lorraine, somewhat irritably, "but you had
+better be careful how you air your Northern notions in public."
+
+"Why so?"
+
+"Because public opinion is too sensitive to tolerate any such
+discussions."
+
+"And is not that a proof that we are at fault with respect to our
+institutions?"
+
+"I don't know. I only know we are living in the midst of a magazine of
+powder, and it is not safe to enter it with a lighted candle."
+
+"Let me proceed with my story," continued Eugene. "During the long
+months in which I was convalescing, I was left almost entirely to the
+companionship of Marie. In my library I found a Bible, which I began to
+read from curiosity, but my curiosity deepened into interest when I saw
+the rapt expression on Marie's face. I saw in it a loving response to
+sentiments to which I was a stranger. In the meantime my conscience was
+awakened, and I scorned to take advantage of her defenselessness. I felt
+that I owed my life to her faithful care, and I resolved to take her
+North, manumit, educate, and marry her. I sent her to a Northern
+academy, but as soon as some of the pupils found that she was colored,
+objections were raised, and the principal was compelled to dismiss her.
+During my search for a school I heard of one where three girls of mixed
+blood were pursuing their studies, every one of whom would have been
+ignominiously dismissed had their connection with the negro race been
+known. But I determined to run no risks. I found a school where her
+connection with the negro race would be no bar to her advancement. She
+graduates next week, and I intend to marry her before I return home. She
+was faithful when others were faithless, stood by me when others
+deserted me to die in loneliness and neglect, and now I am about to
+reward her care with all the love and devotion it is in my power to
+bestow. That is why I am about to marry my faithful and devoted nurse,
+who snatched me from the jaws of death. Now that I have told you my
+story, what say you?"
+
+"Madness and folly inconceivable!" exclaimed Lorraine.
+
+"What to you is madness and folly is perfect sanity with me. After all,
+Alf, is there not an amount of unreason in our prejudices?"
+
+"That may be true; but I wasn't reasoned into it, and I do not expect to
+be reasoned out of it."
+
+"Will you accompany me North?"
+
+"No; except to put you in an insane asylum. You are the greatest crank
+out," said Lorraine, thoroughly disgusted.
+
+"No, thank you; I'm all right. I expect to start North to-morrow. You
+had better come and go."
+
+"I would rather follow you to your grave," replied Lorraine, hotly,
+while an expression of ineffable scorn passed over his cold, proud face.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+SHADOWS IN THE HOME.
+
+On the next morning after this conversation Leroy left for the North, to
+attend the commencement and witness the graduation of his ward. Arriving
+in Ohio, he immediately repaired to the academy and inquired for the
+principal. He was shown into the reception-room, and in a few moments
+the principal entered.
+
+"Good morning," said Leroy, rising and advancing towards him; "how is my
+ward this morning?"
+
+"She is well, and has been expecting you. I am glad you came in time for
+the commencement. She stands among the foremost in her class."
+
+"I am glad to hear it. Will you send her this?" said Leroy, handing the
+principal a card. The principal took the card and immediately left the
+room.
+
+Very soon Leroy heard a light step, and looking up he saw a radiantly
+beautiful woman approaching him.
+
+"Good morning, Marie," he said, greeting her cordially, and gazing upon
+her with unfeigned admiration. "You are looking very handsome this
+morning."
+
+"Do you think so?" she asked, smiling and blushing. "I am glad you are
+not disappointed; that you do not feel your money has been spent in
+vain."
+
+"Oh, no, what I have spent on your education has been the best
+investment I ever made."
+
+"I hope," said Marie, "you may always find it so. But Mas----"
+
+"Hush!" said Leroy, laying his hand playfully on her lips; "you are
+free. I don't want the dialect of slavery to linger on your lips. You
+must not call me that name again."
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"Because I have a nearer and dearer one by which I wish to be called."
+
+Leroy drew her nearer, and whispered in her ear a single word. She
+started, trembled with emotion, grew pale, and blushed painfully. An
+awkward silence ensued, when Leroy, pressing her hand, exclaimed: "This
+is the hand that plucked me from the grave, and I am going to retain it
+as mine; mine to guard with my care until death us do part."
+
+Leroy looked earnestly into her eyes, which fell beneath his ardent
+gaze. With admirable self-control, while a great joy was thrilling her
+heart, she bowed her beautiful head and softly repeated, "Until death us
+do part."
+
+Leroy knew Southern society too well to expect it to condone his offense
+against its social customs, or give the least recognition to his wife,
+however cultured, refined, and charming she might be, if it were known
+that she had the least infusion of negro blood in her veins. But he was
+brave enough to face the consequences of his alliance, and marry the
+woman who was the choice of his heart, and on whom his affections were
+centred.
+
+After Leroy had left the room, Marie sat awhile thinking of the
+wonderful change that had come over her. Instead of being a lonely slave
+girl, with the fatal dower of beauty, liable to be bought and sold,
+exchanged, and bartered, she was to be the wife of a wealthy planter; a
+man in whose honor she could confide, and on whose love she could lean.
+
+Very interesting and pleasant were the commencement exercises in which
+Marie bore an important part. To enlist sympathy for her enslaved race,
+and appear to advantage before Leroy, had aroused all of her energies.
+The stimulus of hope, the manly love which was environing her life,
+brightened her eye and lit up the wonderful beauty of her countenance.
+During her stay in the North she had constantly been brought in contact
+with anti-slavery people. She was not aware that there was so much
+kindness among the white people of the country until she had tested it
+in the North. From the anti-slavery people in private life she had
+learned some of the noblest lessons of freedom and justice, and had
+become imbued with their sentiments. Her theme was "American
+Civilization, its Lights and Shadows."
+
+Graphically she portrayed the lights, faithfully she showed the shadows
+of our American civilization. Earnestly and feelingly she spoke of the
+blind Sampson in our land, who might yet shake the pillars of our great
+Commonwealth. Leroy listened attentively. At times a shadow of annoyance
+would overspread his face, but it was soon lost in the admiration her
+earnestness and zeal inspired. Like Esther pleading for the lives of her
+people in the Oriental courts of a despotic king, she stood before the
+audience, pleading for those whose lips were sealed, but whose condition
+appealed to the mercy and justice of the Nation. Strong men wiped the
+moisture from their eyes, and women's hearts throbbed in unison with the
+strong, brave words that were uttered in behalf of freedom for all and
+chains for none. Generous applause was freely bestowed, and beautiful
+bouquets were showered upon her. When it was known that she was to be
+the wife of her guardian, warm congratulations were given, and earnest
+hopes expressed for the welfare of the lonely girl, who, nearly all her
+life, had been deprived of a parent's love and care. On the eve of
+starting South Leroy procured a license, and united his destiny with the
+young lady whose devotion in the darkest hour had won his love and
+gratitude.
+
+In a few days Marie returned as mistress to the plantation from which
+she had gone as a slave. But as unholy alliances were common in those
+days between masters and slaves, no one took especial notice that Marie
+shared Leroy's life as mistress of his home, and that the family silver
+and jewelry were in her possession. But Leroy, happy in his choice,
+attended to the interests of his plantation, and found companionship in
+his books and in the society of his wife. A few male companions visited
+him occasionally, admired the magnificent beauty of his wife, shook
+their heads, and spoke of him as being very eccentric, but thought his
+marriage the great mistake of his life. But none of his female friends
+ever entered his doors, when it became known that Marie held the
+position of mistress of his mansion, and presided at his table. But she,
+sheltered in the warm clasp of loving arms, found her life like a joyous
+dream.
+
+Into that quiet and beautiful home three children were born, unconscious
+of the doom suspended over their heads.
+
+"Oh, how glad I am," Marie would often say, "that these children are
+free. I could never understand how a cultured white man could have his
+own children enslaved. I can understand how savages, fighting with each
+other, could doom their vanquished foes to slavery, but it has always
+been a puzzle to me how a civilized man could drag his own children,
+bone of his bone, flesh of his flesh, down to the position of social
+outcasts, abject slaves, and political pariahs."
+
+"But, Marie," said Eugene, "all men do not treat their illegitimate
+children in the manner you describe. The last time I was in New Orleans
+I met Henri Augustine at the depot, with two beautiful young girls. At
+first I thought that they were his own children, they resembled him so
+closely. But afterwards I noticed that they addressed him as 'Mister.'
+Before we parted he told me that his wife had taken such a dislike to
+their mother that she could not bear to see them on the place. At last,
+weary of her dissatisfaction, he had promised to bring them to New
+Orleans and sell them. Instead, he was going to Ohio to give them their
+freedom, and make provision for their future."
+
+"What a wrong!" said Marie.
+
+"Who was wronged?" said Leroy, in astonishment.
+
+"Every one in the whole transaction," answered Marie. "Your friend
+wronged himself by sinning against his own soul. He wronged his wife by
+arousing her hatred and jealousy through his unfaithfulness. He wronged
+those children by giving them the _status_ of slaves and outcasts. He
+wronged their mother by imposing upon her the burdens and cares of
+maternity without the rights and privileges of a wife. He made her crown
+of motherhood a circlet of shame. Under other circumstances she might
+have been an honored wife and happy mother. And I do think such men
+wrong their own legitimate children by transmitting to them a weakened
+moral fibre."
+
+"Oh, Marie, you have such an uncomfortable way of putting things. You
+make me feel that we have done those things which we ought not to have
+done, and have left undone those things which we ought to have done."
+
+"If it annoys you," said Marie, "I will stop talking."
+
+"Oh, no, go on," said Leroy, carelessly; and then he continued more
+thoughtfully, "I know a number of men who have sent such children North,
+and manumitted, educated, and left them valuable legacies. We are all
+liable to err, and, having done wrong, all we can do is to make
+reparation."
+
+"My dear husband, this is a wrong where reparation is impossible.
+Neither wealth nor education can repair the wrong of a dishonored birth.
+There are a number of slaves in this section who are servants to their
+own brothers and sisters; whose fathers have robbed them not simply of
+liberty but of the right of being well born. Do you think these things
+will last forever?"
+
+"I suppose not. There are some prophets of evil who tell us that the
+Union is going to dissolve. But I know it would puzzle their brains to
+tell where the crack will begin. I reckon we'll continue to jog along as
+usual. 'Cotton fights, and cotton conquers for American slavery.'"
+
+Even while Leroy dreamed of safety the earthquake was cradling its fire;
+the ground was growing hollow beneath his tread; but his ear was too
+dull to catch the sound; his vision too blurred to read the signs of the
+times.
+
+"Marie," said Leroy, taking up the thread of the discourse, "slavery is
+a sword that cuts both ways. If it wrongs the negro, it also curses the
+white man. But we are in it, and what can we do?"
+
+"Get out of it as quickly as possible."
+
+"That is easier said than done. I would willingly free every slave on my
+plantation if I could do so without expatriating them. Some of them have
+wives and children on other plantations, and to free them is to separate
+them from their kith and kin. To let them remain here as a free people
+is out of the question. My hands are tied by law and custom."
+
+"Who tied them?" asked Marie.
+
+"A public opinion, whose meshes I cannot break. If the negro is the
+thrall of his master, we are just as much the thralls of public
+opinion."
+
+"Why do you not battle against public opinion, if you think it is
+wrong?"
+
+"Because I have neither the courage of a martyr, nor the faith of a
+saint; and so I drift along, trying to make the condition of our slaves
+as comfortable as I possibly can. I believe there are slaves on this
+plantation whom the most flattering offers of freedom would not entice
+away."
+
+"I do not think," said Marie, "that some of you planters understand your
+own slaves. Lying is said to be the vice of slaves. The more intelligent
+of them have so learned to veil their feelings that you do not see the
+undercurrent of discontent beneath their apparent good humor and
+jollity. The more discontented they are, the more I respect them. To me
+a contented slave is an abject creature. I hope that I shall see the
+day when there will not be a slave in the land. I hate the whole thing
+from the bottom of my heart."
+
+"Marie, your Northern education has unfitted you for Southern life. You
+are free, yourself, and so are our children. Why not let well enough
+alone?"
+
+"Because I love liberty, not only for myself but for every human being.
+Think how dear these children are to me; and then for the thought to be
+forever haunting me, that if you were dead they could be turned out of
+doors and divided among your relatives. I sometimes lie awake at night
+thinking of how there might be a screw loose somewhere, and, after all,
+the children and I might be reduced to slavery."
+
+"Marie, what in the world is the matter with you? Have you had a
+presentiment of my death, or, as Uncle Jack says, 'hab you seed it in a
+vision?'"
+
+"No, but I have had such sad forebodings that they almost set me wild.
+One night I dreamt that you were dead; that the lawyers entered the
+house, seized our property, and remanded us to slavery. I never can be
+satisfied in the South with such a possibility hanging over my head."
+
+"Marie, dear, you are growing nervous. Your imagination is too active.
+You are left too much alone on this plantation. I hope that for your own
+and the children's sake I will be enabled to arrange our affairs so as
+to find a home for you where you will not be doomed to the social
+isolation and ostracism that surround you here."
+
+"I don't mind the isolation for myself, but the children. You have
+enjoined silence on me with respect to their connection with the negro
+race, but I do not think we can conceal it from them very long. It will
+not be long before Iola will notice the offishness of girls of her own
+age, and the scornful glances which, even now, I think, are leveled at
+her. Yesterday Harry came crying to me, and told me that one of the
+neighbor's boys had called him 'nigger.'"
+
+A shadow flitted over Leroy's face, as he answered, somewhat soberly,
+"Oh, Marie, do not meet trouble half way. I have manumitted you, and the
+children will follow your condition. I have made you all legatees of my
+will. Except my cousin, Alfred Lorraine, I have only distant relatives,
+whom I scarcely know and who hardly know me."
+
+"Your cousin Lorraine? Are you sure our interests would be safe in his
+hands?"
+
+"I think so; I don't think Alfred would do anything dishonorable."
+
+"He might not with his equals. But how many men would be bound by a
+sense of honor where the rights of a colored woman are in question? Your
+cousin was bitterly opposed to our marriage, and I would not trust any
+important interests in his hands. I do hope that in providing for our
+future you will make assurance doubly sure."
+
+"I certainly will, and all that human foresight can do shall be done for
+you and our children."
+
+"Oh," said Marie, pressing to her heart a beautiful child of six
+summers, "I think it would almost make me turn over in my grave to know
+that every grace and charm which this child possesses would only be so
+much added to her value as an article of merchandise."
+
+As Marie released the child from her arms she looked wonderingly into
+her mother's face and clung closely to her, as if to find refuge from
+some unseen evil. Leroy noticed this, and sighed unconsciously, as an
+expression of pain flitted over his face.
+
+"Now, Marie," he continued, "stop tormenting yourself with useless
+fears. Although, with all her faults, I still love the South, I will
+make arrangements either to live North or go to France. There life will
+be brighter for us all. Now, Marie, seat yourself at the piano and
+sing:--
+
+    'Sing me the songs that to me were so dear,
+            Long, long ago.
+     Sing me the songs I delighted to hear,
+            Long, long ago."
+
+As Marie sang the anxiety faded from her face, a sense of security stole
+over her, and she sat among her loved ones a happy wife and mother. What
+if no one recognized her on that lonely plantation! Her world was,
+nevertheless, there. The love and devotion of her husband brightened
+every avenue of her life, while her children filled her home with music,
+mirth, and sunshine.
+
+Marie had undertaken their education, but she could not give them the
+culture which comes from the attrition of thought, and from contact with
+the ideas of others. Since her school-days she had read extensively and
+thought much, and in solitude her thoughts had ripened. But for her
+children there were no companions except the young slaves of the
+plantation, and she dreaded the effect of such intercourse upon their
+lives and characters.
+
+Leroy had always been especially careful to conceal from his children
+the knowledge of their connection with the negro race. To Marie this
+silence was oppressive.
+
+One day she said to him, "I see no other way of finishing the education
+of these children than by sending them to some Northern school."
+
+"I have come," said Leroy, "to the same conclusion. We had better take
+Iola and Harry North and make arrangements for them to spend several
+years in being educated. Riches take wings to themselves and fly away,
+but a good education is an investment on which the law can place no
+attachment. As there is a possibility of their origin being discovered,
+I will find a teacher to whom I can confide our story, and upon whom I
+can enjoin secrecy. I want them well fitted for any emergency in life.
+When I discover for what they have the most aptitude I will give them
+especial training in that direction."
+
+A troubled look passed over the face of Marie, as she hesitatingly said:
+"I am so afraid that you will regret our marriage when you fully realize
+the complications it brings."
+
+"No, no," said Leroy, tenderly, "it is not that I regret our marriage,
+or feel the least disdain for our children on account of the blood in
+their veins; but I do not wish them to grow up under the contracting
+influence of this race prejudice. I do not wish them to feel that they
+have been born under a proscription from which no valor can redeem them,
+nor that any social advancement or individual development can wipe off
+the ban which clings to them. No, Marie, let them go North, learn all
+they can, aspire all they may. The painful knowledge will come all too
+soon. Do not forestall it. I want them simply to grow up as other
+children; not being patronized by friends nor disdained by foes."
+
+"My dear husband, you may be perfectly right, but are you not preparing
+our children for a fearful awakening? Are you not acting on the plan,
+'After me the deluge?'"
+
+"Not at all, Marie. I want our children to grow up without having their
+self-respect crushed in the bud. You know that the North is not free
+from racial prejudice."
+
+"I know it," said Marie, sadly, "and I think one of the great mistakes
+of our civilization is that which makes color, and not character, a
+social test."
+
+"I think so, too," said Leroy. "The strongest men and women of a
+down-trodden race may bare their bosoms to an adverse fate and develop
+courage in the midst of opposition, but we have no right to subject our
+children to such crucial tests before their characters are formed. For
+years, when I lived abroad, I had an opportunity to see and hear of men
+of African descent who had distinguished themselves and obtained a
+recognition in European circles, which they never could have gained in
+this country. I now recall the name of Ira Aldridge, a colored man from
+New York City, who was covered with princely honors as a successful
+tragedian. Alexander Dumas was not forced to conceal his origin to
+succeed as a novelist. When I was in St. Petersburg I was shown the
+works of Alexander Sergevitch, a Russian poet, who was spoken of as the
+Byron of Russian literature, and reckoned one of the finest poets that
+Russia has produced in this century. He was also a prominent figure in
+fashionable society, and yet he was of African lineage. One of his
+paternal ancestors was a negro who had been ennobled by Peter the
+Great. I can't help contrasting the recognition which these men had
+received with the treatment which has been given to Frederick Douglass
+and other intelligent colored men in this country. With me the wonder is
+not that they have achieved so little, but that they have accomplished
+so much. No, Marie, we will have our children educated without being
+subjected to the depressing influences of caste feeling. Perhaps by the
+time their education is finished I will be ready to wind up my affairs
+and take them abroad, where merit and ability will give them entrance
+into the best circles of art, literature, and science."
+
+After this conversation Leroy and his wife went North, and succeeded in
+finding a good school for their children. In a private interview he
+confided to the principal the story of the cross in their blood, and,
+finding him apparently free from racial prejudice, he gladly left the
+children in his care. Gracie, the youngest child, remained at home, and
+her mother spared no pains to fit her for the seminary against the time
+her sister should have finished her education.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+THE PLAGUE AND THE LAW.
+
+Years passed, bringing no special change to the life of Leroy and his
+wife. Shut out from the busy world, its social cares and anxieties,
+Marie's life flowed peacefully on. Although removed by the protecting
+care of Leroy from the condition of servitude, she still retained a deep
+sympathy for the enslaved, and was ever ready to devise plans to
+ameliorate their condition.
+
+Leroy, although in the midst of slavery, did not believe in the
+rightfulness of the institution. He was in favor of gradual
+emancipation, which would prepare both master and slave for a moral
+adaptation to the new conditions of freedom. While he was willing to
+have the old rivets taken out of slavery, politicians and planters were
+devising plans to put in new screws. He was desirous of having it ended
+in the States; they were clamorous to have it established in the
+Territories.
+
+But so strong was the force of habit, combined with the feebleness of
+his moral resistance and the nature of his environment, that instead of
+being an athlete, armed for a glorious strife, he had learned to drift
+where he should have steered, to float with the current instead of nobly
+breasting the tide. He conducted his plantation with as much lenity as
+it was possible to infuse into a system darkened with the shadow of a
+million crimes.
+
+Leroy had always been especially careful not to allow his children to
+spend their vacations at home. He and Marie generally spent that time
+with them at some summer resort.
+
+"I would like," said Marie, one day, "to have our children spend their
+vacations at home. Those summer resorts are pleasant, yet, after all,
+there is no place like home. But," and her voice became tremulous, "our
+children would now notice their social isolation and inquire the cause."
+A faint sigh arose to the lips of Leroy, as she added: "Man is a social
+being; I've known it to my sorrow."
+
+There was a tone of sadness in Leroy's voice, as he replied: "Yes,
+Marie, let them stay North. We seem to be entering on a period fraught
+with great danger. I cannot help thinking and fearing that we are on the
+eve of a civil war."
+
+"A civil war!" exclaimed Marie, with an air of astonishment. "A civil
+war about what?"
+
+"Why, Marie, the thing looks to me so wild and foolish I hardly know how
+to explain. But some of our leading men have come to the conclusion that
+North and South had better separate, and instead of having one to have
+two independent governments. The spirit of secession is rampant in the
+land. I do not know what the result will be, and I fear it will bode no
+good to the country. Between the fire-eating Southerners and the
+meddling Abolitionists we are about to be plunged into a great deal of
+trouble. I fear there are breakers ahead. The South is dissatisfied with
+the state of public opinion in the North. We are realizing that we are
+two peoples in the midst of one nation. William H. Seward has
+proclaimed that the conflict between freedom and slavery is
+irrepressible, and that the country cannot remain half free and half
+slave."
+
+"How will _you_ go?" asked Marie.
+
+"My heart is with the Union. I don't believe in secession. There has
+been no cause sufficient to justify a rupture. The North has met us time
+and again in the spirit of concession and compromise. When we wanted the
+continuance of the African slave trade the North conceded that we should
+have twenty years of slave-trading for the benefit of our plantations.
+When we wanted more territory she conceded to our desires and gave us
+land enough to carve out four States, and there yet remains enough for
+four more. When we wanted power to recapture our slaves when they fled
+North for refuge, Daniel Webster told Northerners to conquer their
+prejudices, and they gave us the whole Northern States as a hunting
+ground for our slaves. The Presidential chair has been filled the
+greater number of years by Southerners, and the majority of offices has
+been shared by our men. We wanted representation in Congress on a basis
+which would include our slaves, and the North, whose suffrage represents
+only men, gave us a three-fifths representation for our slaves, whom we
+count as property. I think the step will be suicidal. There are
+extremists in both sections, but I hope, between them both, wise
+counsels and measures will prevail."
+
+Just then Alfred Lorraine was ushered into the room. Occasionally he
+visited Leroy, but he always came alone. His wife was the only daughter
+of an enterprising slave-trader, who had left her a large amount of
+property.
+
+Her social training was deficient, her education limited, but she was
+too proud of being a pure white woman to enter the home of Leroy, with
+Marie as its presiding genius. Lorraine tolerated Marie's presence as a
+necessary evil, while to her he always seemed like a presentiment of
+trouble. With his coming a shadow fell upon her home, hushing its music
+and darkening its sunshine. A sense of dread oppressed her. There came
+into her soul an intuitive feeling that somehow his coming was fraught
+with danger. When not peering around she would often catch his eyes bent
+on her with a baleful expression.
+
+Leroy and his cousin immediately fell into a discussion on the condition
+of the country. Lorraine was a rank Secessionist, ready to adopt the
+most extreme measures of the leaders of the movement, even to the
+reopening of the slave trade. Leroy thought a dissolution of the Union
+would involve a fearful expenditure of blood and treasure for which,
+before the eyes of the world, there could be no justification. The
+debate lasted late into the night, leaving both Lorraine and Leroy just
+as set in their opinions as they were before they began. Marie listened
+attentively awhile, then excused herself and withdrew.
+
+After Lorraine had gone Marie said: "There is something about your
+cousin that fills me with nameless dread. I always feel when he enters
+the room as if some one were walking over my grave. I do wish he would
+stay at home."
+
+"I wish so, too, since he disturbs you. But, Marie, you are growing
+nervous. How cold your hands are. Don't you feel well?"
+
+"Oh, yes; I am only a little faint. I wish he would never come. But, as
+he does, I must make the best of it."
+
+"Yes, Marie, treat him well for my sake. He is the only relative I have
+who ever darkens our doors."
+
+"I have no faith in his friendship for either myself or my children. I
+feel that while he makes himself agreeable to you he hates me from the
+bottom of his heart, and would do anything to get me out of the way. Oh,
+I am _so_ glad I am your lawful wife, and that you married me before you
+brought me back to this State! I believe that if you were gone he
+wouldn't have the least scruple against trying to prove our marriage
+invalid and remanding us to slavery."
+
+Leroy looked anxiously and soberly at his wife, and said: "Marie, I do
+not think so. Your life is too lonely here. Write your orders to New
+Orleans, get what you need for the journey, and let us spend the summer
+somewhere in the North."
+
+Just then Marie's attention was drawn to some household matters, and it
+was a short time before she returned.
+
+"Tom," continued Leroy, "has just brought the mail, and here is a letter
+from Iola."
+
+Marie noticed that he looked quite sober as he read, and that an
+expression of vexation was lingering on his lips.
+
+"What is the matter?" asked Marie.
+
+"Nothing much; only a tempest in a teapot. The presence of a colored
+girl in Mr. Galen's school has caused a breeze of excitement. You know
+Mr. Galen is quite an Abolitionist, and, being true to his principles,
+he could not consistently refuse when a colored woman applied for her
+daughter's admission. Of course, when he took her he was compelled to
+treat her as any other pupil. In so doing he has given mortal offense to
+the mother of two Southern boys. She has threatened to take them away if
+the colored girl remains."
+
+"What will he do about it?" asked Marie, thoughtfully.
+
+"Oh, it is a bitter pill, but I think he will have to swallow it. He is
+between two fires. He cannot dismiss her from the school and be true to
+his Abolition principles; yet if he retains her he will lose his
+Southern customers, and I know he cannot afford to do that."
+
+"What does Iola say?"
+
+"He has found another boarding place for her, but she is to remain in
+the school. He had to throw that sop to the whale."
+
+"Does she take sides against the girl?"
+
+"No, I don't think she does. She says she feels sorry for her, and that
+she would hate to be colored. 'It is so hard to be looked down on for
+what one can't help.'"
+
+"Poor child! I wish we could leave the country. I never would consent to
+her marrying any one without first revealing to him her connection with
+the negro race. This is a subject on which I am not willing to run any
+risks."
+
+"My dear Marie, when you shall have read Iola's letter you will see it
+is more than a figment of my imagination that has made me so loth to
+have our children know the paralyzing power of caste."
+
+Leroy, always liberal with his wife and children, spared neither pains
+nor expense to have them prepared for their summer outing. Iola was to
+graduate in a few days. Harry was attending a school in the State of
+Maine, and his father had written to him, apprising him of his intention
+to come North that season. In a few days Leroy and his wife started
+North, but before they reached Vicksburg they were met by the
+intelligence that the yellow fever was spreading in the Delta, and that
+pestilence was breathing its bane upon the morning air and distilling
+its poison upon the midnight dews.
+
+"Let us return home," said Marie.
+
+"It is useless," answered Leroy. "It is nearly two days since we left
+home. The fever is spreading south of us with fearful rapidity. To
+return home is to walk into the jaws of death. It was my intention to
+have stopped at Vicksburg, but now I will go on as soon as I can make
+the connections."
+
+Early next morning Leroy and his wife started again on their journey.
+The cars were filled with terror-stricken people who were fleeing from
+death, when death was everywhere. They fled from the city only to meet
+the dreaded apparition in the country. As they journeyed on Leroy grew
+restless and feverish. He tried to brace himself against the infection
+which was creeping slowly but insidiously into his life, dulling his
+brain, fevering his blood, and prostrating his strength. But vain were
+all his efforts. He had no armor strong enough to repel the invasion of
+death. They stopped at a small town on the way and obtained the best
+medical skill and most careful nursing, but neither skill nor art
+availed. On the third day death claimed Leroy as a victim, and Marie
+wept in hopeless agony over the grave of her devoted husband, whose sad
+lot it was to die from home and be buried among strangers.
+
+But before he died he placed his will in Marie's hands, saying: "I have
+left you well provided for. Kiss the children for me and bid them
+good-bye."
+
+He tried to say a parting word to Gracie, but his voice failed, and he
+fainted into the stillness of death. A mortal paleness overspread his
+countenance, on which had already gathered the shadows that never
+deceive. In speechless agony Marie held his hand until it released its
+pressure in death, and then she stood alone beside her dead, with all
+the bright sunshine of her life fading into the shadows of the grave.
+Heart-broken and full of fearful forebodings, Marie left her cherished
+dead in the quiet village of H---- and returned to her death-darkened
+home.
+
+It was a lovely day in June, birds were singing their sweetest songs,
+flowers were breathing their fragrance on the air, when Mam Liza,
+sitting at her cabin-door, talking with some of the house servants, saw
+a carriage approaching, and wondered who was coming.
+
+"I wonder," she said, excitedly, "whose comin' to de house when de folks
+is done gone."
+
+But her surprise was soon changed to painful amazement, when she saw
+Marie, robed in black, alighting from the carriage, and holding Gracie
+by the hand. She caught sight of the drooping head and grief-stricken
+face, and rushed to her, exclaiming:--
+
+"Whar's Marse Eugene?"
+
+"Dead," said Marie, falling into Mammy Liza's arms, sobbing out, "dead!
+_ died_ of yellow fever."
+
+A wild burst of sorrow came from the lips of the servants, who had
+drawn near.
+
+"Where is he?" said Mam Liza, speaking like one suddenly bewildered.
+
+"He is buried in H----. I could not bring him home," said Marie.
+
+"My pore baby," said Mam Liza, with broken sobs. "I'se drefful sorry. My
+heart's most broke into two." Then, controlling herself, she dismissed
+the servants who stood around, weeping, and led Marie to her room.
+
+"Come, honey, lie down an' lem'me git yer a cup ob tea."
+
+"Oh, no; I don't want anything," said Marie, wringing her hands in
+bitter agony.
+
+"Oh, honey," said Mam Liza, "yer musn't gib up. Yer knows whar to put
+yer trus'. Yer can't lean on de arm of flesh in dis tryin' time."
+Kneeling by the side of her mistress she breathed out a prayer full of
+tenderness, hope, and trust.
+
+Marie grew calmer. It seemed as if that earnest, trustful prayer had
+breathed into her soul a feeling of resignation.
+
+Gracie stood wonderingly by, vainly trying to comprehend the great
+sorrow which was overwhelming the life of her mother.
+
+After the first great burst of sorrow was over, Marie sat down to her
+desk and wrote a letter to Iola, informing her of her father's death. By
+the time she had finished it she grew dizzy and faint, and fell into a
+swoon. Mammy Liza tenderly laid her on the bed, and helped restore her
+to consciousness.
+
+Lorraine, having heard of his cousin's death, came immediately to see
+Marie. She was too ill to have an interview with him, but he picked up
+the letter she had written and obtained Iola's address.
+
+Lorraine made a careful investigation of the case, to ascertain whether
+Marie's marriage was valid. To his delight he found there was a flaw in
+the marriage and an informality in the manumission. He then determined
+to invalidate Marie's claim, and divide the inheritance among Leroy's
+white relations. In a short time strangers, distant relatives of her
+husband, became frequent visitors at the plantation, and made themselves
+offensively familiar. At length the dreadful storm burst.
+
+Alfred Lorraine entered suit for his cousin's estate, and for the
+remanding of his wife and children to slavery. In a short time he came
+armed with legal authority, and said to Marie:--
+
+"I have come to take possession of these premises."
+
+"By what authority?" she gasped, turning deathly pale. He hesitated a
+moment, as if his words were arrested by a sense of shame.
+
+"By what authority?" she again demanded.
+
+"By the authority of the law," answered Lorraine, "which has decided
+that Leroy's legal heirs are his white blood relations, and that your
+marriage is null and void."
+
+"But," exclaimed Marie, "I have our marriage certificate. I was Leroy's
+lawful wife."
+
+"Your marriage certificate is not worth the paper it is written on."
+
+"Oh, you must be jesting, cruelly jesting. It can't be so."
+
+"Yes; it is so. Judge Starkins has decided that your manumission is
+unlawful; your marriage a bad precedent, and inimical to the welfare of
+society; and that you and your children are remanded to slavery."
+
+Marie stood as one petrified. She seemed a statue of fear and despair.
+She tried to speak, reached out her hand as if she were groping in the
+dark, turned pale as death as if all the blood in her veins had receded
+to her heart, and, with one heart-rending cry of bitter agony, she fell
+senseless to the floor. Her servants, to whom she had been so kind in
+her days of prosperity, bent pityingly over her, chafed her cold hands,
+and did what they could to restore her to consciousness. For awhile she
+was stricken with brain fever, and her life seemed trembling on its
+frailest cord.
+
+Gracie was like one perfectly dazed. When not watching by her mother's
+bedside she wandered aimlessly about the house, growing thinner day by
+day. A slow fever was consuming her life. Faithfully and carefully Mammy
+Liza watched over her, and did all she could to bring smiles to her lips
+and light to her fading eyes, but all in vain. Her only interest in life
+was to sit where she could watch her mother as she tossed to and fro in
+delirium, and to wonder what had brought the change in her once happy
+home. Finally she, too, was stricken with brain fever, which intervened
+as a mercy between her and the great sorrow that was overshadowing her
+young life. Tears would fill the servants' eyes as they saw the dear
+child drifting from them like a lovely vision, too bright for earth's
+dull cares and weary, wasting pain.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+SCHOOL-GIRL NOTIONS.
+
+During Iola's stay in the North she found a strong tide of opposition
+against slavery. Arguments against the institution had entered the
+Church and made legislative halls the arenas of fierce debate. The
+subject had become part of the social converse of the fireside, and had
+enlisted the best brain and heart of the country. Anti-slavery
+discussions were pervading the strongest literature and claiming, a
+place on the most popular platforms.
+
+Iola, being a Southern girl and a slave-holder's daughter, always
+defended slavery when it was under discussion.
+
+"Slavery can't be wrong," she would say, "for my father is a
+slave-holder, and my mother is as good to our servants as she can be. My
+father often tells her that she spoils them, and lets them run over her.
+I never saw my father strike one of them. I love my mammy as much as I
+do my own mother, and I believe she loves us just as if we were her own
+children. When we are sick I am sure that she could not do anything more
+for us than she does."
+
+"But, Iola," responded one of her school friends, "after all, they are
+not free. Would you be satisfied to have the most beautiful home, the
+costliest jewels, or the most elegant wardrobe if you were a slave?"
+
+"Oh, the cases are not parallel. Our slaves do not want their freedom.
+They would not take it if we gave it to them."
+
+"That is not the case with them all. My father has seen men who have
+encountered almost incredible hardships to get their freedom. Iola, did
+you ever attend an anti-slavery meeting?"
+
+"No; I don't think these Abolitionists have any right to meddle in our
+affairs. I believe they are prejudiced against us, and want to get our
+property. I read about them in the papers when I was at home. I don't
+want to hear my part of the country run down. My father says the slaves
+would be very well contented if no one put wrong notions in their
+heads."
+
+"I don't know," was the response of her friend, "but I do not think that
+that slave mother who took her four children, crossed the Ohio River on
+the ice, killed one of the children and attempted the lives of the other
+two, was a contented slave. And that other one, who, running away and
+finding herself pursued, threw herself over the Long Bridge into the
+Potomac, was evidently not satisfied. I do not think the numbers who are
+coming North on the Underground Railroad can be very contented. It is
+not natural for people to run away from happiness, and if they are so
+happy and contented, why did Congress pass the Fugitive Slave Bill?"
+
+"Well, I don't think," answered Iola, "any of our slaves would run away.
+I know mamma don't like slavery very much. I have often heard her say
+that she hoped the time would come when there would not be a slave in
+the land. My father does not think as she does. He thinks slavery is not
+wrong if you treat them well and don't sell them from their families. I
+intend, after I have graduated, to persuade pa to buy a house in New
+Orleans, and spend the winter there. You know this will be my first
+season out, and I hope that you will come and spend the winter with me.
+We will have such gay times, and you will so fall in love with our sunny
+South that you will never want to come back to shiver amid the snows and
+cold of the North. I think one winter in the South would cure you of
+your Abolitionism."
+
+"Have you seen her yet?"
+
+This question was asked by Louis Bastine, an attorney who had come North
+in the interests of Lorraine. The scene was the New England village
+where Mr. Galen's academy was located, and which Iola was attending.
+This question was addressed to Camille Lecroix, Bastine's intimate
+friend, who had lately come North. He was the son of a planter who lived
+near Leroy's plantation, and was familiar with Iola's family history.
+Since his arrival North, Bastine had met him and communicated to him his
+intentions.
+
+"Yes; just caught a glimpse of her this morning as she was going down
+the street," was Camille's reply.
+
+"She is a most beautiful creature," said Louis Bastine. "She has the
+proud poise of Leroy, the most splendid eyes I ever saw in a woman's
+head, lovely complexion, and a glorious wealth of hair. She would bring
+$2000 any day in a New Orleans market."
+
+"I always feel sorry," said Camille, "when I see one of those Creole
+girls brought to the auction block. I have known fathers who were deeply
+devoted to their daughters, but who through some reverse of fortune were
+forced to part with them, and I always think the blow has been equally
+terrible on both sides. I had a friend who had two beautiful daughters
+whom he had educated in the North. They were cultured, and really belles
+in society. They were entirely ignorant of their lineage, but when their
+father died it was discovered that their mother had been a slave. It was
+a fearful blow. They would have faced poverty, but the knowledge of
+their tainted blood was more than they could bear."
+
+"What became of them?"
+
+"They both died, poor girls. I believe they were as much killed by the
+blow as if they had been shot. To tell you the truth, Bastine, I feel
+sorry for this girl. I don't believe she has the least idea of her negro
+blood."
+
+"No, Leroy has been careful to conceal it from her," replied Bastine.
+
+"Is that so?" queried Camille. "Then he has made a great mistake."
+
+"I can't help that," said Bastine; "business is business."
+
+"How can you get her away?" asked Camille. "You will have to be very
+cautious, because if these pesky Abolitionists get an inkling of what
+you're doing they will balk your game double quick. And when you come to
+look at it, isn't it a shame to attempt to reduce that girl to slavery?
+She is just as white as we are, as good as any girl in the land, and
+better educated than thousands of white girls. A girl with her apparent
+refinement and magnificent beauty, were it not for the cross in her
+blood, I would be proud to introduce to our set. She would be the
+sensation of the season. I believe to-day it would be easier for me to
+go to the slums and take a young girl from there, and have her
+introduced as my wife, than to have society condone the offense if I
+married that lovely girl. There is not a social circle in the South that
+would not take it as a gross insult to have her introduced into it."
+
+"Well," said Bastine, "my plan is settled. Leroy has never allowed her
+to spend her vacations at home. I understand she is now very anxious to
+get home, and, as Lorraine's attorney, I have come on his account to
+take her home."
+
+"How will you do it?"
+
+"I shall tell her her father is dangerously ill, and desires her to come
+as quickly as possible."
+
+"And what then?"
+
+"Have her inventoried with the rest of the property."
+
+"Don't she know that her father is dead?"
+
+"I think not," said Bastine. "She is not in mourning, but appeared very
+light-hearted this morning, laughing and talking with two other girls. I
+was struck with her great beauty, and asked a gentleman who she was. He
+said, 'Miss Leroy, of Mississippi.' I think Lorraine has managed the
+affair so as to keep her in perfect ignorance of her father's death. I
+don't like the job, but I never let sentiment interfere with my work."
+
+Poor Iola! When she said slavery was not a bad thing, little did she
+think that she was destined to drink to its bitter dregs the cup she was
+so ready to press to the lips of others.
+
+"How do you think she will take to her situation?" asked Camille.
+
+"O, I guess," said Bastine, "she will sulk and take it pretty hard at
+first; but if she is managed right she will soon get over it. Give her
+plenty of jewelry, fine clothes, and an easy time."
+
+"All this business must be conducted with the utmost secrecy and speed.
+Her mother could not have written to her, for she has been suffering
+with brain fever and nervous prostration since Leroy's death. Lorraine
+knows her market value too well, and is too shrewd to let so much
+property pass out of his hands without making an effort to retain it."
+
+"Has she any brothers or sisters?"
+
+"Yes, a brother," replied Bastine; "but he is at another school, and I
+have no orders from Lorraine in reference to him. If I can get the girl
+I am willing to let well enough alone. I dread the interview with the
+principal more than anything else. I am afraid he will hem and haw, and
+have his doubts. Perhaps, when he sees my letters and hears my story, I
+can pull the wool over his eyes."
+
+"But, Louis, this is a pitiful piece of business. I should hate to be
+engaged in it."
+
+A deep flush of shame overspread for a moment the face of Lorraine's
+attorney, as he replied: "I don't like the job, but I have undertaken
+it, and must go through with it."
+
+"I see no '_must_' about it. Were I in your place I would wash my hands
+of the whole business."
+
+"I can't afford it," was Bastine's hard, business-like reply. On the
+next morning after this conversation between these two young men, Louis
+Bastine presented himself to the principal of the academy, with the
+request that Iola be permitted to leave immediately to attend the
+sick-bed of her father, who was dangerously ill. The principal
+hesitated, but while he was deliberating, a telegram, purporting to come
+from Iola's mother, summoned Iola to her father's bedside without delay.
+The principal, set at rest in regard to the truthfulness of the
+dispatch, not only permitted but expedited her departure.
+
+Iola and Bastine took the earliest train, and traveled without pausing
+until they reached a large hotel in a Southern city. There they were
+obliged to wait a few hours until they could resume their journey, the
+train having failed to make connection. Iola sat in a large, lonely
+parlor, waiting for the servant to show her to a private room. She had
+never known a great sorrow. Never before had the shadows of death
+mingled with the sunshine of her life.
+
+Anxious, travel-worn, and heavy-hearted, she sat in an easy chair, with
+nothing to divert her from the grief and anxiety which rendered every
+delay a source of painful anxiety.
+
+"Oh, I hope that he will be alive and growing better!" was the thought
+which kept constantly revolving in her mind, until she fell asleep. In
+her dreams she was at home, encircled in the warm clasp of her father's
+arms, feeling her mother's kisses lingering on her lips, and hearing the
+joyous greetings of the servants and Mammy Liza's glad welcome as she
+folded her to her heart. From this dream of bliss she was awakened by a
+burning kiss pressed on her lips, and a strong arm encircling her.
+Gazing around and taking in the whole situation, she sprang from her
+seat, her eyes flashing with rage and scorn, her face flushed to the
+roots of her hair, her voice shaken with excitement, and every nerve
+trembling with angry emotion.
+
+"How dare you do such a thing! Don't you know if my father were here he
+would crush you to the earth?"
+
+"Not so fast, my lovely tigress," said Bastine, "your father knew what
+he was doing when he placed you in my charge."
+
+"My father made a great mistake, if he thought he had put me in charge
+of a gentleman."
+
+"I am your guardian for the present," replied Bastine. "I am to see you
+safe home, and then my commission ends."
+
+"I wish it were ended now," she exclaimed, trembling with anger and
+mortification. Her voice was choked by emotion, and broken by smothered
+sobs. Louis Bastine thought to himself, "she is a real spitfire, but
+beautiful even in her wrath."
+
+During the rest of her journey Iola preserved a most freezing reserve
+towards Bastine. At length the journey was ended. Pale and anxious she
+rode up the avenue which led to her home.
+
+A strange silence pervaded the place. The servants moved sadly from
+place to place, and spoke in subdued tones. The windows were heavily
+draped with crape, and a funeral air pervaded the house.
+
+Mammy Liza met her at the door, and, with streaming eyes and convulsive
+sobs, folded her to her heart, as Iola exclaimed, in tones of hopeless
+anguish:--
+
+"Oh, papa's dead!"
+
+"Oh, my pore baby!" said mammy, "ain't you hearn tell 'bout it? Yore
+par's dead, an' your mar's bin drefful sick. She's better now."
+
+Mam Liza stepped lightly into Mrs. Leroy's room, and gently apprised her
+of Iola's arrival. In a darkened room lay the stricken mother, almost
+distracted by her late bereavement.
+
+"Oh, Iola," she exclaimed, as her daughter entered, "is this you? I am
+so sorry you came."
+
+Then, burying her head in Iola's bosom, she wept convulsively. "Much as
+I love you," she continued, between her sobs, "and much as I longed to
+see you, I am sorry you came."
+
+"Why, mother," replied Iola, astonished, "I received your telegram last
+Wednesday, and I took the earliest train I could get."
+
+"My dear child, I never sent you a telegram. It was a trick to bring you
+down South and reduce you to slavery."
+
+Iola eyed her mother curiously. What did she mean? Had grief dethroned
+her reason? Yet her eye was clear, her manner perfectly rational.
+
+Marie saw the astounded look on Iola's face, and nerving herself to the
+task, said: "Iola, I must tell you what your father always enjoined me
+to be silent about. I did not think it was the wisest thing, but I
+yielded to his desires. I have negro blood in my veins. I was your
+father's slave before I married him. His relatives have set aside his
+will. The courts have declared our marriage null and void and my
+manumission illegal, and we are all to be remanded to slavery."
+
+An expression of horror and anguish swept over Iola's face, and, turning
+deathly pale, she exclaimed, "Oh, mother, it can't be so! you must be
+dreaming!"
+
+"No, my child; it is a terrible reality."
+
+Almost wild with agony, Iola paced the floor, as the fearful truth broke
+in crushing anguish upon her mind. Then bursting into a paroxysm of
+tears succeeded by peals of hysterical laughter, said:--
+
+"I used to say that slavery is right. I didn't know what I was talking
+about." Then growing calmer, she said, "Mother, who is at the bottom of
+this downright robbery?"
+
+"Alfred Lorraine; I have always dreaded that man, and what I feared has
+come to pass. Your father had faith in him; I never had."
+
+"But, mother, could we not contest his claim. You have your marriage
+certificate and papa's will."
+
+"Yes, my dear child, but Judge Starkins has decided that we have no
+standing in the court, and no testimony according to law."
+
+"Oh, mother, what can I do?"
+
+"Nothing, my child, unless you can escape to the North."
+
+"And leave you?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Mother, I will never desert you in your hour of trial. But can nothing
+be done? Had father no friends who would assist us?"
+
+"None that I know of. I do not think he had an acquaintance who approved
+of our marriage. The neighboring planters have stood so aloof from me
+that I do not know where to turn for either help or sympathy. I believe
+it was Lorraine who sent the telegram. I wrote to you as soon as I could
+after your father's death, but fainted just as I finished directing the
+letter. I do not think he knows where your brother is, and, if possible,
+he must not know. If you can by any means, _do_ send a letter to Harry
+and warn him not to attempt to come home. I don't know how you will
+succeed, for Lorraine has us all under surveillance. But it is according
+to law."
+
+"What law, mother?"
+
+"The law of the strong against the weak."
+
+"Oh, mother, it seems like a dreadful dream, a fearful nightmare! But I
+cannot shake it off. Where is Gracie?"
+
+"The dear child has been running down ever since her papa's death. She
+clung to me night and day while I had the brain fever, and could not be
+persuaded to leave me. She hardly ate anything for more than a week. She
+has been dangerously ill for several days, and the doctor says she
+cannot live. The fever has exhausted all her rallying power, and yet,
+dear as she is to me, I would rather consign her to the deepest grave
+than see her forced to be a slave."
+
+"So would I. I wish I could die myself."
+
+"Oh, Iola, do not talk so. Strive to be a Christian, to have faith in
+the darkest hour. Were it not for my hope of heaven I couldn't stand all
+this trouble."
+
+"Mother, are these people Christians who made these laws which are
+robbing us of our inheritance and reducing us to slavery? If this is
+Christianity I hate and despise it. Would the most cruel heathen do
+worse?"
+
+"My dear child, I have not learned my Christianity from them. I have
+learned it at the foot of the cross, and from this book," she said,
+placing a New Testament in Iola's hands. "Some of the most beautiful
+lessons of faith and trust I have ever learned were from among our lowly
+people in their humble cabins."
+
+"Mamma!" called a faint voice from the adjoining room. Marie
+immediately arose and went to the bedside of her sick child, where Mammy
+Liza was holding her faithful vigils. The child had just awakened from a
+fitful sleep.
+
+"I thought," she said, "that I heard Iola's voice. Has she come?"
+
+"Yes, darling; do you want to see her?"
+
+"Oh, yes," she said, as a bright smile broke over her dying features.
+
+Iola passed quickly into the room. Gracie reached out her thin,
+bloodless hand, clasped Iola's palm in hers, and said: "I am so glad you
+have come. Dear Iola, stand by mother. You and Harry are all she has. It
+is not hard to die. You and mother and Harry must meet me in heaven."
+
+Swiftly the tidings went through the house that Gracie was dying. The
+servants gathered around her with tearful eyes, as she bade them all
+good-bye. When she had finished, and Mammy had lowered the pillow, an
+unwonted radiance lit up her eye, and an expression of ineffable
+gladness overspread her face, as she murmured: "It is beautiful, so
+beautiful!" Fainter and fainter grew her voice, until, without a
+struggle or sigh, she passed away beyond the power of oppression and
+prejudice.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII.
+
+
+A REJECTED SUITOR.
+
+Very unexpected was Dr. Gresham's proposal to Iola. She had heartily
+enjoyed his society and highly valued his friendship, but he had never
+been associated in her mind with either love or marriage. As he held her
+hand in his a tell-tale flush rose to her cheek, a look of grateful
+surprise beamed from her eye, but it was almost immediately succeeded by
+an air of inexpressible sadness, a drooping of her eyelids, and an
+increasing pallor of her cheek. She withdrew her hand from his, shook
+her head sadly, and said:--
+
+"No, Doctor; that can never be. I am very grateful to you for your
+kindness. I value your friendship, but neither gratitude nor friendship
+is love, and I have nothing more than those to give."
+
+"Not at present," said Dr. Gresham; "but may I not hope your friendship
+will ripen into love?"
+
+"Doctor, I could not promise. I do not think that I should. There are
+barriers between us that I cannot pass. Were you to know them I think
+you would say the same."
+
+Just then the ambulance brought in a wounded scout, and Iola found
+relief from the wounds of her own heart in attending to his.
+
+Dr. Gresham knew the barrier that lay between them. It was one which his
+love had surmounted. But he was too noble and generous to take advantage
+of her loneliness to press his suit. He had lived in a part of the
+country where he had scarcely ever seen a colored person, and around the
+race their misfortunes had thrown a halo of romance. To him the negro
+was a picturesque being, over whose woes he had wept when a child, and
+whose wrongs he was ready to redress when a man. But when he saw the
+lovely girl who had been rescued by the commander of the post from the
+clutches of slavery, all the manhood and chivalry in his nature arose in
+her behalf, and he was ready to lay on the altar of her heart his first
+grand and overmastering love. Not discouraged by her refusal, but
+determined to overcome her objections, Dr. Gresham resolved that he
+would abide his time.
+
+Iola was not indifferent to Dr. Gresham. She admired his manliness and
+respected his character. He was tall and handsome, a fine specimen of
+the best brain and heart of New England. He had been nurtured under
+grand and ennobling influences. His father was a devoted Abolitionist.
+His mother was kind-hearted, but somewhat exclusive and aristocratic.
+She would have looked upon his marriage with Iola as a mistake and
+feared that such an alliance would hurt the prospects of her daughters.
+
+During Iola's stay in the North, she had learned enough of the racial
+feeling to influence her decision in reference to Dr. Gresham's offer.
+Iola, like other girls, had had her beautiful day-dreams before she was
+rudely awakened by the fate which had dragged her into the depths of
+slavery. In the chambers of her imagery were pictures of noble deeds; of
+high, heroic men, knightly, tender, true, and brave. In Dr. Gresham she
+saw the ideal of her soul exemplified. But in her lonely condition,
+with all its background of terrible sorrow and deep abasement, she had
+never for a moment thought of giving or receiving love from one of that
+race who had been so lately associated in her mind with horror,
+aversion, and disgust. His kindness to her had been a new experience.
+His companionship was an unexpected pleasure. She had learned to enjoy
+his presence and to miss him when absent, and when she began to question
+her heart she found that unconsciously it was entwining around him.
+
+"Yes," she said to herself, "I do like him; but I can never marry him.
+To the man I marry my heart must be as open as the flowers to the sun. I
+could not accept his hand and hide from him the secret of my birth; and
+I could not consent to choose the happiest lot on earth without first
+finding my poor heart-stricken and desolate mother. Perhaps some day I
+may have the courage to tell him my sad story, and then make my heart
+the sepulchre in which to bury all the love which might have gladdened
+and brightened my whole life."
+
+During the sad and weary months which ensued while the war dragged its
+slow length along, Dr. Gresham and Iola often met by the bedsides of the
+wounded and dying, and sometimes he would drop a few words at which her
+heart would beat quicker and her cheek flush more vividly. But he was so
+kind, tender, and respectful, that Iola had no idea he knew her race
+affiliations. She knew from unmistakable signs that Dr. Gresham had
+learned to love her, and that he had power to call forth the warmest
+affection of her soul; but she fought with her own heart and repressed
+its rising love. She felt that it was best for his sake that they should
+not marry. When she saw the evidences of his increasing love she
+regretted that she had not informed him at the first of the barrier that
+lay between them; it might have saved him unnecessary suffering.
+Thinking thus, Iola resolved, at whatever cost of pain it might be to
+herself, to explain to Dr. Gresham what she meant by the insurmountable
+barrier. Iola, after a continuous strain upon her nervous system for
+months, began to suffer from general debility and nervous depression.
+Dr. Gresham saw the increasing pallor on Iola's cheek and the loss of
+buoyancy in her step. One morning, as she turned from the bed of a young
+soldier for whom she had just written a letter to his mother, there was
+such a look of pity and sorrow on her face that Dr. Gresham's whole
+heart went out in sympathy for her, and he resolved to break the silence
+he had imposed upon himself.
+
+"Iola," he said, and there was a depth of passionate tenderness in his
+voice, a volume of unexpressed affection in his face, "you are wronging
+yourself. You are sinking beneath burdens too heavy for you to bear. It
+seems to me that besides the constant drain upon your sympathies there
+is some great sorrow preying upon your life; some burden that ought to
+be shared." He gazed upon her so ardently that each cord of her heart
+seemed to vibrate, and unbidden tears sprang to her lustrous eyes, as
+she said, sadly:--
+
+"Doctor, you are right."
+
+"Iola, my heart is longing to lift those burdens from your life. Love,
+like faith, laughs at impossibilities. I can conceive of no barrier too
+high for my love to surmount. Consent to be mine, as nothing else on
+earth is mine."
+
+"Doctor, you know not what you ask," replied Iola. "Instead of coming
+into this hospital a self-sacrificing woman, laying her every gift and
+advantage upon the altar of her country, I came as a rescued slave, glad
+to find a refuge from a fate more cruel than death; a fate from which I
+was rescued by the intervention of my dear dead friend, Thomas Anderson.
+I was born on a lonely plantation on the Mississippi River, where the
+white population was very sparse. We had no neighbors who ever visited
+us; no young white girls with whom I ever played in my childhood; but,
+never having enjoyed such companionship, I was unconscious of any sense
+of privation. Our parents spared no pains to make the lives of their
+children (we were three) as bright and pleasant as they could. Our home
+was so happy. We had a large number of servants, who were devoted to us.
+I never had the faintest suspicion that there was any wrongfulness in
+slavery, and I never dreamed of the dreadful fate which broke in a storm
+of fearful anguish over our devoted heads. Papa used to take us to New
+Orleans to see the Mardi Gras, and while there we visited the theatres
+and other places of amusement and interest. At home we had books,
+papers, and magazines to beguile our time. Perfectly ignorant of my
+racial connection, I was sent to a Northern academy, and soon made many
+friends among my fellow-students. Companionship with girls of my own age
+was a new experience, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I spent several years
+in New England, and was busily preparing for my commencement exercises
+when my father was snatched away--died of yellow fever on his way North
+to witness my graduation. Through a stratagem, I was brought hurriedly
+from the North, and found that my father was dead; that his nearest
+kinsman had taken possession of our property; that my mother's marriage
+had been declared illegal, because of an imperceptible infusion of negro
+blood in her veins; and that she and her children had been remanded to
+slavery. I was torn from my mother, sold as a slave, and subjected to
+cruel indignities, from which I was rescued and a place given to me in
+this hospital. Doctor, I did not choose my lot in life, but I have no
+other alternative than to accept it. The intense horror and agony I felt
+when I was first told the story are over. Thoughts and purposes have
+come to me in the shadow I should never have learned in the sunshine. I
+am constantly rousing myself up to suffer and be strong. I intend, when
+this conflict is over, to cast my lot with the freed people as a helper,
+teacher, and friend. I have passed through a fiery ordeal, but this
+ministry of suffering will not be in vain. I feel that my mind has
+matured beyond my years. I am a wonder to myself. It seems as if years
+had been compressed into a few short months. In telling you this, do you
+not, can you not, see that there is an insurmountable barrier between
+us?"
+
+"No, I do not," replied Dr. Gresham. "I love you for your own sake. And
+with this the disadvantages of birth have nothing to do."
+
+"You say so now, and I believe that you are perfectly sincere. Today
+your friendship springs from compassion, but, when that subsides, might
+you not look on me as an inferior?"
+
+"Iola, you do not understand me. You think too meanly of me. You must
+not judge me by the worst of my race. Surely our country has produced a
+higher type of manhood than the men by whom you were tried and tempted."
+
+"Tried, but not tempted," said Iola, as a deep flush overspread her
+face; "I was never tempted. I was sold from State to State as an article
+of merchandise. I had outrages heaped on me which might well crimson the
+cheek of honest womanhood with shame, but I never fell into the clutches
+of an owner for whom I did not feel the utmost loathing and intensest
+horror. I have heard men talk glibly of the degradation of the negro,
+but there is a vast difference between abasement of condition and
+degradation of character. I was abased, but the men who trampled on me
+were the degraded ones."
+
+"But, Iola, you must not blame all for what a few have done."
+
+"A few have done? Did not the whole nation consent to our abasement?"
+asked Iola, bitterly.
+
+"No, Miss Iola, we did not all consent to it. Slavery drew a line of
+cleavage in this country. Although we were under one government we were
+farther apart in our sentiments than if we had been divided by lofty
+mountains and separated by wide seas. And had not Northern sentiment
+been brought to bear against the institution, slavery would have been
+intact until to-day."
+
+"But, Doctor, the negro is under a social ban both North and South. Our
+enemies have the ear of the world, and they can depict us just as they
+please."
+
+"That is true; but the negro has no other alternative than to make
+friends of his calamities. Other men have plead his cause, but out of
+the race must come its own defenders. With them the pen must be
+mightier than the sword. It is the weapon of civilization, and they must
+use it in their own defense. We cannot tell what is in them until they
+express themselves."
+
+"Yes, and I think there is a large amount of latent and undeveloped
+ability in the race, which they will learn to use for their own benefit.
+This my hospital experience has taught me."
+
+"But," said Dr. Gresham, "they must learn to struggle, labor, and
+achieve. By facts, not theories, they will be judged in the future. The
+Anglo-Saxon race is proud, domineering, aggressive, and impatient of a
+rival, and, as I think, has more capacity for dragging down a weaker
+race than uplifting it. They have been a conquering and achieving
+people, marvelous in their triumphs of mind over matter. They have
+manifested the traits of character which are developed by success and
+victory."
+
+"And yet," said Iola, earnestly, "I believe the time will come when the
+civilization of the negro will assume a better phase than you
+Anglo-Saxons possess. You will prove unworthy of your high vantage
+ground if you only use your superior ability to victimize feebler races
+and minister to a selfish greed of gold and a love of domination."
+
+"But, Iola," said Dr. Gresham, a little impatiently, "what has all this
+to do with our marriage? Your complexion is as fair as mine. What is to
+hinder you from sharing my Northern home, from having my mother to be
+your mother?" The tones of his voice grew tender, as he raised his eyes
+to Iola's face and anxiously awaited her reply.
+
+"Dr. Gresham," said Iola, sadly, "should the story of my life be
+revealed to your family, would they be willing to ignore all the
+traditions of my blood, forget all the terrible humiliations through
+which I have passed? I have too much self-respect to enter your home
+under a veil of concealment. I have lived in New England. I love the
+sunshine of her homes and the freedom of her institutions. But New
+England is not free from racial prejudice, and I would never enter a
+family where I would be an unwelcome member."
+
+"Iola, dear, you have nothing to fear in that direction."
+
+"Doctor," she said, and a faint flush rose to her cheek, "suppose we
+should marry, and little children in after years should nestle in our
+arms, and one of them show unmistakable signs of color, would you be
+satisfied?"
+
+She looked steadfastly into his eyes, which fell beneath her
+truth-seeking gaze. His face flushed as if the question had suddenly
+perplexed him. Iola saw the irresolution on his face, and framed her
+answer accordingly.
+
+"Ah, I see," she said, "that you are puzzled. You had not taken into
+account what might result from such a marriage. I will relieve you from
+all embarrassment by simply saying I cannot be your wife. When the war
+is over I intend to search the country for my mother. Doctor, were you
+to give me a palace-like home, with velvet carpets to hush my tread, and
+magnificence to surround my way, I should miss her voice amid all other
+tones, her presence amid every scene. Oh, you do not know how hungry my
+heart is for my mother! Were I to marry you I would carry an aching
+heart into your home and dim its brightness. I have resolved never to
+marry until I have found my mother. The hope of finding her has colored
+all my life since I regained my freedom. It has helped sustain me in the
+hour of fearful trial. When I see her I want to have the proud
+consciousness that I bring her back a heart just as loving, faithful,
+and devoted as the last hour we parted."
+
+"And is this your final answer?"
+
+"It is. I have pledged my life to that resolve, and I believe time and
+patience will reward me."
+
+There was a deep shadow of sorrow and disappointment on the face of Dr.
+Gresham as he rose to leave. For a moment he held her hand as it lay
+limp in his own. If she wavered in her determination it was only for a
+moment. No quivering of her lip or paling of her cheek betrayed any
+struggle of her heart. Her resolve was made, and his words were
+powerless to swerve her from the purpose of her soul.
+
+After Dr. Gresham had gone Iola went to her room and sat buried in
+thought. It seemed as if the fate of Tantalus was hers, without his
+crimes. Here she was lonely and heart-stricken, and unto her was
+presented the offer of love, home, happiness, and social position; the
+heart and hand of a man too noble and generous to refuse her
+companionship for life on account of the blood in her veins. Why should
+she refuse these desirable boons? But, mingling with these beautiful
+visions of manly love and protecting care she saw the anguish of her
+heart-stricken mother and the pale, sweet face of her dying sister, as
+with her latest breath she had said, "Iola, stand by mamma!"
+
+"No, no," she said to herself; "I was right to refuse Dr. Gresham. How
+dare I dream of happiness when my poor mamma's heart may be slowly
+breaking? I should be ashamed to live and ashamed to die were I to
+choose a happy lot for myself and leave poor mamma to struggle alone. I
+will never be satisfied till I get tidings of her. And when I have found
+her I will do all I can to cheer and brighten the remnant of her life."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIV.
+
+
+HARRY LEROY.
+
+It was several weeks after Iola had written to her brother that her
+letter reached him. The trusty servant to whom she delivered it watched
+his opportunity to mail it. At last he succeeded in slipping it into
+Lorraine's mail and dropping them all into the post office together.
+Harry was studying at a boys' academy in Maine. His father had given
+that State the preference because, while on a visit there, he had been
+favorably impressed with the kindness and hospitality of the people. He
+had sent his son a large sum of money, and given him permission to spend
+awhile with some school-chums till he was ready to bring the family
+North, where they could all spend the summer together. Harry had
+returned from his visit, and was looking for letters and remittances
+from home, when a letter, all crumpled, was handed him by the principal
+of the academy. He recognized his sister's handwriting and eagerly
+opened the letter. As he read, he turned very pale; then a deep flush
+overspread his face and an angry light flashed from his eyes. As he read
+on, his face became still paler; he gasped for breath and fell into a
+swoon. Appalled at the sudden change which had swept over him like a
+deadly sirocco, the principal rushed to the fallen boy, picked up the
+missive that lay beside him, and immediately rang for help and
+dispatched for the doctor. The doctor came at once and was greatly
+puzzled. Less than an hour before, he had seen him with a crowd of
+merry, laughter-loving boys, apparently as light-hearted and joyous as
+any of them; now he lay with features drawn and pinched, his face deadly
+pale, as if some terrible suffering had sent all the blood in his veins
+to stagnate around his heart. Harry opened his eyes, shuddered, and
+relapsed into silence. The doctor, all at sea in regard to the cause of
+the sudden attack, did all that he could to restore him to consciousness
+and quiet the perturbation of his spirit. He succeeded, but found he was
+strangely silent. A terrible shock had sent a tremor through every
+nerve, and the doctor watched with painful apprehension its effect upon
+his reason. Giving him an opiate and enjoining that he should be kept
+perfectly quiet, the doctor left the room, sought the principal, and
+said:--
+
+"Mr. Bascom, here is a case that baffles my skill. I saw that boy pass
+by my window not more than half an hour ago, full of animation, and now
+he lies hovering between life and death. I have great apprehension for
+his reason. Can you throw any light on the subject?"
+
+Mr. Bascom hesitated.
+
+"I am not asking you as a matter of idle curiosity, but as a physician.
+I must have all the light I can get in making my diagnosis of the case."
+
+The principal arose, went to his desk, took out the letter which he had
+picked up from the floor, and laid it in the physician's hand. As the
+doctor read, a look of indignant horror swept over his face. Then he
+said: "Can it be possible! I never suspected such a thing. It must be a
+cruel, senseless hoax."
+
+"Doctor," said Mr. Bascom, "I have been a life-long Abolitionist and
+have often read of the cruelties and crimes of American slavery, but
+never before did I realize the low moral tone of the social life under
+which such shameless cruelties could be practiced on a defenseless widow
+and her orphaned children. Let me read the letter again. Just look at
+it, all tear-blotted and written with a trembling hand:--
+
+
+    'DEAR BROTHER:--I have dreadful news for you and I hardly know how
+    to tell it. Papa and Gracie are both dead. He died of yellow fever.
+    Mamma is almost distracted. Papa's cousin has taken possession of
+    our property, and instead of heirs we are chattels. Mamma has
+    explained the whole situation to me. She was papa's slave before she
+    married. He loved her, manumitted, educated, and married her. When
+    he died Mr. Lorraine entered suit for his property and Judge
+    Starkins has decided in his favor. The decree of the court has made
+    their marriage invalid, robbed us of our inheritance, and remanded
+    us all to slavery. Mamma is too wretched to attempt to write
+    herself, but told me to entreat you not to attempt to come home. You
+    can do us no good, and that mean, cruel Lorraine may do you much
+    harm. Don't attempt, I beseech you, to come home. Show this letter
+    to Mr. Bascom and let him advise you what to do. But don't, for our
+    sake, attempt to come home.
+
+    'Your heart-broken sister,
+
+    'IOLA LEROY.'"
+
+
+"This," said the doctor, "is a very awkward affair. The boy is too ill
+to be removed. It is doubtful if the nerves which have trembled with
+such fearful excitement will ever recover their normal condition. It is
+simply a work of mercy to watch over him with the tenderest care."
+
+Fortunately for Harry he had fallen into good hands, and the most tender
+care and nursing were bestowed upon him. For awhile Harry was strangely
+silent, never referring to the terrible misfortune which had so suddenly
+overshadowed his life. It seemed as if the past were suddenly blotted
+out of his memory. But he was young and of an excellent constitution,
+and in a few months he was slowly recovering.
+
+"Doctor," said he one day, as the physician sat at his bedside, "I seem
+to have had a dreadful dream, and to have dreamt that my father was
+dead, and my mother and sister were in terrible trouble, but I could not
+help them. Doctor, was it a dream, or was it a reality? It could not
+have been a dream, for when I fell asleep the grass was green and the
+birds were singing, but now the winds are howling and the frost is on
+the ground. Doctor, tell me how it is? How long have I been here?"
+
+Sitting by his bedside, and taking his emaciated hand in his, the doctor
+said, in a kind, fatherly tone: "My dear boy, you have been very ill,
+and everything depends on your keeping quiet, very quiet."
+
+As soon as he was strong enough the principal gave him his letter to
+read.
+
+"But, Mr. Bascom," Harry said, "I do not understand this. It says my
+mother and father were legally married. How could her marriage be set
+aside and her children robbed of their inheritance? This is not a
+heathen country. I hardly think barbarians would have done any worse;
+yet this is called a Christian country."
+
+"Christian in name," answered the principal. "When your father left you
+in my care, knowing that I was an Abolitionist, he confided his secret
+to me. He said that life was full of vicissitudes, and he wished you to
+have a good education. He wanted you and your sister to be prepared for
+any emergency. He did not wish you to know that you had negro blood in
+your veins. He knew that the spirit of caste pervaded the nation, North
+and South, and he was very anxious to have his children freed from its
+depressing influences. He did not intend to stay South after you had
+finished your education."
+
+"But," said Harry, "I cannot understand. If my mother was lawfully
+married, how could they deprive her of her marital rights?"
+
+"When Lorraine," continued Mr. Bascom, "knew your father was dead, all
+he had to do was to find a flaw in her manumission, and, of course, the
+marriage became illegal. She could not then inherit property nor
+maintain her freedom; and her children followed her condition."
+
+Harry listened attentively. Things which had puzzled him once now became
+perfectly clear. He sighed heavily, and, turning to the principal, said:
+"I see things in a new light. Now I remember that none of the planters'
+wives ever visited my mother; and we never went to church except when my
+father took us to the Cathedral in New Orleans. My father was a
+Catholic, but I don't think mamma is."
+
+"Now, Harry," said the principal, "life is before you. If you wish to
+stay North, I will interest friends in your behalf, and try to get you a
+situation. Going South is out of the question. It is probable that by
+this time your mother and sister are removed from their home. You are
+powerless to fight against the law that enslaved them. Should you fall
+into the clutches of Lorraine, he might give you a great deal of
+trouble. You would be pressed into the Confederate service to help them
+throw up barricades, dig trenches, and add to the strength of those who
+enslaved your mother and sister."
+
+"Never! never!" cried Harry. "I would rather die than do it! I should
+despise myself forever if I did."
+
+"Numbers of our young men," said Mr. Bascom, "have gone to the war which
+is now raging between North and South. You have been sick for several
+months, and much has taken place of which you are unaware. Would you
+like to enlist?"
+
+"I certainly would; not so much for the sake of fighting for the
+Government, as with the hope of finding my mother and sister, and
+avenging their wrongs. I should like to meet Lorraine on the
+battle-field."
+
+"What kind of a regiment would you prefer, white or colored?"
+
+Harry winced when the question was asked. He felt the reality of his
+situation as he had not done before. It was as if two paths had suddenly
+opened before him, and he was forced to choose between them. On one side
+were strength, courage, enterprise, power of achievement, and memories
+of a wonderful past. On the other side were weakness, ignorance,
+poverty, and the proud world's social scorn. He knew nothing of colored
+people except as slaves, and his whole soul shrank from equalizing
+himself with them. He was fair enough to pass unchallenged among the
+fairest in the land, and yet a Christless prejudice had decreed that he
+should be a social pariah. He sat, thoughtful and undecided, as if a
+great struggle were going on in his mind. Finally the principal said, "I
+do not think that you should be assigned to a colored regiment because
+of the blood in your veins, but you will have, in such a regiment,
+better facilities for finding your mother and sister."
+
+"You are right, Mr. Bascom. To find my mother and sister I call no task
+too heavy, no sacrifice too great."
+
+Since Harry had come North he had learned to feel profound pity for the
+slave. But there is a difference between looking on a man as an object
+of pity and protecting him as such, and being identified with him and
+forced to share his lot. To take his place with them on the arena of
+life was the test of his life, but love was stronger than pride.
+
+His father was dead. His mother and sister were enslaved by a mockery of
+justice. It was more than a matter of choice where he should stand on
+the racial question. He felt that he must stand where he could strike
+the most effective blow for their freedom. With that thought strong in
+his mind, and as soon as he recovered, he went westward to find a
+colored regiment. He told the recruiting officer that he wished to be
+assigned to a colored regiment.
+
+"Why do you wish that," said the officer, looking at Harry with an air
+of astonishment.
+
+"Because I am a colored man."
+
+The officer look puzzled. It was a new experience. He had seen colored
+men with fair complexions anxious to lose their identity with the
+colored race and pose as white men, but here was a man in the flush of
+his early manhood, to whom could come dreams of promotion from a simple
+private to a successful general, deliberately turning his back upon
+every gilded hope and dazzling opportunity, to cast his lot with the
+despised and hated negro.
+
+"I do not understand you," said the officer. "Surely you are a white
+man, and, as such, I will enlist you in a white regiment."
+
+"No," said Harry, firmly, "I am a colored man, and unless I can be
+assigned to a colored regiment I am not willing to enter the army."
+
+"Well," said the officer, "you are the d----d'st fool I ever saw--a man
+as white as you are turning his back upon his chances of promotion! But
+you can take your choice."
+
+So Harry was permitted to enter the army. By his promptness and valor he
+soon won the hearts of his superior officers, and was made drill
+sergeant. Having nearly all of his life been used to colored people, and
+being taught by his mother to be kind and respectful to them, he was
+soon able to gain their esteem. He continued in the regiment until Grant
+began the task of opening the Mississippi. After weeks of fruitless
+effort, Grant marched his army down the west side of the river, while
+the gunboats undertook the perilous task of running the batteries. Men
+were found for the hour. The volunteers offered themselves in such
+numbers that lots were cast to determine who should have the opportunity
+to enlist in an enterprise so fraught with danger. Harry was one on whom
+the lot fell.
+
+Grant crossed the river below, coiled his forces around Vicksburg like
+a boa-constrictor, and held it in his grasp. After forty-seven days of
+endurance the city surrendered to him. Port Hudson, after the surrender
+of Vicksburg, gave up the unequal contest, and the Mississippi was open
+to the Gulf.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XV.
+
+
+ROBERT AND HIS COMPANY.
+
+"Good morning, gentlemen," said Robert Johnson, as he approached Colonel
+Robinson, the commander of the post, who was standing at the door of his
+tent, talking with Captain Sybil.
+
+"Good morning," responded Colonel Robinson, "I am glad you have come. I
+was just about to send for you. How is your company getting on?"
+
+"First rate, sir," replied Robert.
+
+"In good health?"
+
+"Excellent. They are all in good health and spirits. Our boys are used
+to hardship and exposure, and the hope of getting their freedom puts new
+snap into them."
+
+"I am glad of it," said Colonel Robinson. "They make good fighters and
+very useful allies. Last night we received very valuable intelligence
+from some fugitives who had escaped through the Rebel lines. I do not
+think many of the Northern people realize the service they have been to
+us in bringing information and helping our boys when escaping from Rebel
+prisons. I never knew a full-blooded negro to betray us. A month ago,
+when we were encamped near the Rebel lines, a colored woman managed
+admirably to keep us posted as to the intended movements of the enemy.
+She was engaged in laundry work, and by means of hanging her sheets in
+different ways gave us the right signals."
+
+"I hope," said Captain Sybil, "that the time will come when some
+faithful historian will chronicle all the deeds of daring and-service
+these people have performed during this struggle, and give them due
+credit therefor."
+
+"Our great mistake," said Colonel Robinson, "was our long delay in
+granting them their freedom, and even what we have done is only partial.
+The border States still retain their slaves. We ought to have made a
+clean sweep of the whole affair. Slavery is a serpent which we nourished
+in its weakness, and now it is stinging us in its strength."
+
+"I think so, too," said Captain Sybil. "But in making his proclamation
+of freedom, perhaps Mr. Lincoln went as far as he thought public opinion
+would let him."
+
+"It is remarkable," said Colonel Robinson, "how these Secesh hold out.
+It surprises me to see how poor white men, who, like the negroes, are
+victims of slavery, rally around the Stripes and Bars. These men, I
+believe, have been looked down on by the aristocratic slaveholders, and
+despised by the well-fed and comfortable slaves, yet they follow their
+leaders into the very jaws of death; face hunger, cold, disease, and
+danger; and all for what? What, under heaven, are they fighting for?
+Now, the negro, ignorant as he is, has learned to regard our flag as a
+banner of freedom, and to look forward to his deliverance as a
+consequence of the overthrow of the Rebellion."
+
+"I think," said Captain Sybil "that these ignorant white men have been
+awfully deceived. They have had presented to their imaginations utterly
+false ideas of the results of Secession, and have been taught that its
+success would bring them advantages which they had never enjoyed in the
+Union."
+
+"And I think," said Colonel Robinson, "that the women and ministers have
+largely fed and fanned the fires of this Rebellion, and have helped to
+create a public opinion which has swept numbers of benighted men into
+the conflict. Well might one of their own men say, 'This is a rich man's
+war and a poor man's fight.' They were led into it through their
+ignorance, and held in it by their fears."
+
+"I think," said Captain Sybil, "that if the public school had been
+common through the South this war would never have occurred. Now things
+have reached such a pass that able-bodied men must report at
+headquarters, or be treated as deserters. Their leaders are desperate
+men, of whom it has been said: 'They have robbed the cradle and the
+grave.'"
+
+"They are fighting against fearful odds," said Colonel Robinson, "and
+their defeat is only a question of time."
+
+"As soon," said Robert, "as they fired on Fort Sumter, Uncle Daniel, a
+dear old father who had been praying and hoping for freedom, said to me:
+'Dey's fired on Fort Sumter, an' mark my words, Bob, de Norf's boun'
+ter whip.'"
+
+"Had we freed the slaves at the outset," said Captain Sybil, "we
+wouldn't have given the Rebels so much opportunity to strengthen
+themselves by means of slave labor in raising their crops, throwing up
+their entrenchments, and building their fortifications. Slavery was a
+deadly cancer eating into the life of the nation; but, somehow, it had
+cast such a glamour over us that we have acted somewhat as if our
+national safety were better preserved by sparing the cancer than by
+cutting it out."
+
+"Political and racial questions have sadly complicated this matter,"
+said Colonel Robinson. "The North is not wholly made up of anti-slavery
+people. At the beginning of this war we were not permeated with justice,
+and so were not ripe for victory. The battle of Bull Run inaugurated the
+war by a failure. Instead of glory we gathered shame, and defeat in
+place of victory."
+
+"We have been slow," said Captain Sybil, "to see our danger and to do
+our duty. Our delay has cost us thousands of lives and millions of
+dollars. Yet it may be it is all for the best. Our national wound was
+too deep to be lightly healed. When the President issued his
+Emancipation Proclamation my heart overflowed with joy, and I said:
+'This is the first bright rift in the war cloud.'"
+
+"And did you really think that they would accept the terms of freedom
+and lay down their arms?" asked Robert.
+
+"I hardly thought they would," continued Captain Sybil. "I did not think
+that their leaders would permit it. I believe the rank and file of their
+army are largely composed of a mass of ignorance, led, manipulated, and
+moulded by educated and ambitious wickedness. In attempting to overthrow
+the Union, a despotism and reign of terror were created which
+encompassed them as fetters of iron, and they will not accept the
+conditions until they have reached the last extremity. I hardly think
+they are yet willing to confess that such extremity has been reached."
+
+"Captain," said Robert, as they left Colonel Robinson's tent, "I have
+lived all my life where I have had a chance to hear the 'Secesh' talk,
+and when they left their papers around I used to read everything I could
+lay my hands on. It seemed to me that the big white men not only ruled
+over the poor whites and made laws for them, but over the whole nation."
+
+"That was so," replied Captain Sybil. "The North was strong but
+forbearing. It was busy in trade and commerce, and permitted them to
+make the Northern States hunting-grounds for their slaves. When we sent
+back Simms and Burns from beneath the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument and
+Faneuil Hall, they mistook us; looked upon us as a lot of
+money-grabbers, who would be willing to purchase peace at any price. I
+do not believe when they fired on the 'Star of the West' that they had
+the least apprehension of the fearful results which were to follow their
+madness and folly."
+
+"Well, Captain," asked Robert, "if the free North would submit to be
+called on to help them catch their slaves, what could be expected of us,
+who all our lives had known no other condition than that of slavery? How
+much braver would you have been, if your first recollections had been
+those of seeing your mother maltreated, your father cruelly beaten, or
+your fellow-servants brutally murdered? I wonder why they never enslaved
+the Indians!"
+
+"You are mistaken, Robert, if you think the Indians were never enslaved.
+I have read that the Spaniards who visited the coasts of America
+kidnapped thousands of Indians, whom they sent to Europe and the West
+Indies as slaves. Columbus himself, we are informed, captured five
+hundred natives, and sent them to Spain. The Indian had the lesser power
+of endurance, and Las Cassas suggested the enslavement of the negro,
+because he seemed to possess greater breadth of physical organization
+and stronger power of endurance. Slavery was an old world's crime which,
+I have heard, the Indians never practiced among themselves. Perhaps it
+would have been harder to reduce them to slavery and hold them in
+bondage when they had a vast continent before them, where they could
+hide in the vastnesses of its mountains or the seclusion of its forests,
+than it was for white men to visit the coasts of Africa and, with their
+superior knowledge, obtain cargoes of slaves, bring them across the
+ocean, hem them in on the plantations, and surround them with a pall of
+dense ignorance."
+
+"I remember," said Robert, "in reading a history I once came across at
+our house, that when the Africans first came to this country they did
+not all speak one language. Some had only met as mutual enemies. They
+were not all one color, their complexions ranging from tawny yellow to
+deep black."
+
+"Yes," said Captain Sybil, "and in dealing with the negro we wanted his
+labor; in dealing with the Indian we wanted his lands. For one we had
+weapons of war; for the other we had real and invisible chains, the
+coercion of force, and the terror of the unseen world."
+
+"That's exactly so, Captain! When I was a boy I used to hear the old
+folks tell what would happen to bad people in another world; about the
+devil pouring hot lead down people's throats and stirring them up with a
+pitch-fork; and I used to get so scared that I would be afraid to go to
+bed at night. I don't suppose the Indians ever heard of such things,
+or, if they had, I never heard of them being willing to give away all
+their lands on earth, and quietly wait for a home in heaven."
+
+"But, surely, Robert, you do not think religion has degraded the negro?"
+
+"Oh, I wouldn't say that. But a man is in a tight fix when he takes his
+part, like Nat Turner or Denmark Veasy, and is made to fear that he will
+be hanged in this world and be burned in the next. And, since I come to
+think of it, we colored folks used to get mightily mixed up about our
+religion. Mr. Gundover had on his plantation a real smart man. He was
+religious, but he would steal."
+
+"Oh, Robert," queried Sybil, "how could he be religious and steal?"
+
+"He didn't think," retorted Robert, "it was any harm to steal from his
+master. I guess he thought it was right to get from his master all he
+could. He would have thought it wrong to steal from his fellow-servants.
+He thought that downright mean, but I wouldn't have insured the lives of
+Gundover's pigs and chickens, if Uncle Jack got them in a tight place.
+One day there was a minister stopping with Mr. Gundover. As a matter of
+course, in speaking of his servants, he gave Jack's sins an airing. He
+would much rather confess Jack's sins than his own. Now Gundover wanted
+to do two things, save his pigs and poultry, and save Jack's soul. He
+told the minister that Jack was a liar and a thief, and gave the
+minister a chance to talk with Uncle Jack about the state of his soul.
+Uncle Jack listened very quietly, and when taxed with stealing his
+master's wheat he was ready with an answer. 'Now Massa Parker,' said
+Jack, 'lem'me tell yer jis' how it war 'bout dat wheat. Wen ole Jack
+com'd down yere, dis place war all growed up in woods. He go ter work,
+clared up de groun' an' plowed, an' planted, an' riz a crap, an' den wen
+it war all done, he hadn't a dollar to buy his ole woman a gown; an' he
+jis' took a bag ob wheat.'"
+
+"What did Mr. Parker say?" asked Sybil.
+
+"I don't know, though I reckon he didn't think it was a bad steal after
+all, but I don't suppose he told Jack so. When he came to the next
+point, about Jack's lying, I suppose he thought he had a clear case; but
+Jack was equal to the occasion."
+
+"How did he clear up that charge?" interrogated Captain Sybil.
+
+"Finely. I think if he had been educated he would have made a first-rate
+lawyer. He said, 'Marse Parker, dere's old Joe. His wife don't lib on
+dis plantation. Old Joe go ober ter see her, but he stayed too long, an'
+didn't git back in time fer his work. Massa's oberseer kotched him an'
+cut him all up. When de oberseer went inter de house, pore old Joe war
+all tired an' beat up, an' so he lay down by de fence corner and go ter
+sleep. Bimeby Massa oberseer com'd an' axed, "all bin a workin' libely?"
+I say "Yes, Massa."' Then said Mr. Parker, 'You were lying, Joe had been
+sleeping, not working.' 'I know's dat, but ef I tole on Joe, Massa
+oberseer cut him all up again, and Massa Jesus says, "Blessed am de
+Peacemaker."' I heard, continued Robert, that Mr. Parker said to
+Gundover, 'You seem to me like a man standing in a stream where the
+blood of Jesus can reach you, but you are standing between it and your
+slaves. How will you answer that in the Day of Judgment?'"
+
+"What did Gundover say?" asked Captain Sybil.
+
+"He turned pale, and said, 'For God's sake don't speak of the Day of
+Judgment in connection with slavery.'"
+
+Just then a messenger brought a communication to Captain Sybil. He read
+it attentively, and, turning to Robert, said, "Here are orders for an
+engagement at Five Forks to-morrow. Oh, this wasting of life and
+scattering of treasure might have been saved had we only been wiser. But
+the time is passing. Look after your company, and see that everything is
+in readiness as soon as possible."
+
+Carefully Robert superintended the arrangements for the coming battle of
+a strife which for years had thrown its crimson shadows over the land.
+The Rebels fought with a valor worthy of a better cause. The disaster of
+Bull Run had been retrieved. Sherman had made his famous march to the
+sea. Fighting Joe Hooker had scaled the stronghold of the storm king and
+won a victory in the palace chamber of the clouds; the Union soldiers
+had captured Columbia, replanted the Stars and Stripes in Charleston,
+and changed that old sepulchre of slavery into the cradle of a new-born
+freedom. Farragut had been as triumphant on water as the other generals
+had been victorious on land, and New Orleans had been wrenched from the
+hands of the Confederacy. The Rebel leaders were obstinate. Misguided
+hordes had followed them to defeat and death. Grant was firm and
+determined to fight it out if it took all summer. The closing battles
+were fought with desperate courage and firm resistance, but at last the
+South was forced to succumb. On the ninth day of April, 1865, General
+Lee surrendered to General Grant. The lost cause went down in blood and
+tears, and on the brows of a ransomed people God poured the chrism of a
+new era, and they stood a race newly anointed with freedom.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVI.
+
+
+AFTER THE BATTLE.
+
+Very sad and heart-rending were the scenes with which Iola came in
+constant contact. Well may Christian men and women labor and pray for
+the time when nations shall learn war no more; when, instead of bloody
+conflicts, there shall be peaceful arbitration. The battle in which
+Robert fought, after his last conversation with Captain Sybil, was one
+of the decisive struggles of the closing conflict. The mills of doom and
+fate had ground out a fearful grist of agony and death,
+
+    "And lives of men and souls of States
+       Were thrown like chaff beyond the gates."
+
+Numbers were taken prisoners. Pale, young corpses strewed the earth;
+manhood was stricken down in the flush of its energy and prime. The
+ambulances brought in the wounded and dying. Captain Sybil laid down his
+life on the altar of freedom. His prediction was fulfilled. Robert was
+brought into the hospital, wounded, but not dangerously. Iola remembered
+him as being the friend of Tom Anderson, and her heart was drawn
+instinctively towards him. For awhile he was delirious, but her presence
+had a soothing effect upon him. He sometimes imagined that she was his
+mother, and he would tell her how he had missed her; and then at times
+he would call her sister. Iola, tender and compassionate, humored his
+fancies, and would sing to him in low, sweet tones some of the hymns
+she had learned in her old home in Mississippi. One day she sang a few
+verses of the hymn beginning with the words--
+
+    "Drooping souls no longer grieve,
+           Heaven is propitious;
+     If on Christ you do believe,
+          You will find Him precious."
+
+"That," said he, looking earnestly into Iola's face, "was my mother's
+hymn. I have not heard it for years. Where did you learn it?"
+
+Iola gazed inquiringly upon the face of her patient, and saw, by his
+clear gaze and the expression of his face, that his reason had returned.
+
+"In my home, in Mississippi, from my own dear mother," was Iola's reply.
+
+"Do you know where she learned it?" asked Robert.
+
+"When she was a little girl she heard her mother sing it. Years after, a
+Methodist preacher came to our house, sang this hymn, and left the book
+behind him. My father was a Catholic, but my mother never went to any
+church. I did not understand it then, but I do now. We used to sing
+together, and read the Bible when we were alone."
+
+"Do you remember where she came from, and who was her mother?" asked
+Robert, anxiously.
+
+"My dear friend, you must be quiet. The fever has left you, but I will
+not answer for the consequences if you get excited."
+
+Robert lay quiet and thoughtful for awhile and, seeing he was wakeful,
+Iola said, "Have you any friends to whom you would like to send a
+letter?"
+
+A pathetic expression flitted over his face, as he sadly replied, "I
+haven't, to my knowledge, a single relation in the world. When I was
+about ten years old my mother and sister were sold from me. It is more
+than twenty years since I have heard from them. But that hymn which you
+were singing reminded me so much of my mother! She used to sing it when
+I was a child. Please sing it again."
+
+Iola's voice rose soft and clear by his bedside, till he fell into a
+quiet slumber. She remembered that her mother had spoken of her brother
+before they had parted, and her interest and curiosity were awakened by
+Robert's story. While he slept, she closely scrutinized Robert's
+features, and detected a striking resemblance between him and her
+mother.
+
+"Oh, I _do_ wonder if he can be my mother's brother, from whom she has
+been separated so many years!"
+
+Anxious as she was to ascertain if there was any relationship between
+Robert and her mother, she forebore to question him on the subject which
+lay so near her heart. But one day, when he was so far recovered as to
+be able to walk around, he met Iola on the hospital grounds, and said to
+her:--
+
+"Miss Iola, you remind me so much of my mother and sister that I cannot
+help wondering if you are the daughter of my long-lost sister."
+
+"Do you think," asked Iola, "if you saw the likeness of your sister you
+would recognize her?"
+
+"I am afraid not. But there is one thing I can remember about her: she
+used to have a mole on her cheek, which mother used to tell her was her
+beauty spot."
+
+"Look at this," said Iola, handing him a locket which contained her
+mother's picture.
+
+Robert grasped the locket eagerly, scanned the features attentively,
+then, handing it back, said: "I have only a faint remembrance of my
+sister's features; but I never could recognize in that beautiful woman
+the dear little sister with whom I used to play. Oh, the cruelty of
+slavery! How it wrenched and tore us apart! Where is _your_ mother now?"
+
+"Oh, I cannot tell," answered Iola. "I left her in Mississippi. My
+father was a wealthy Creole planter, who fell in love with my mother.
+She was his slave, but he educated her in the North, freed, and married
+her. My father was very careful to have the fact of our negro blood
+concealed from us. I had not the slightest suspicion of it. When he was
+dead the secret was revealed. His white relations set aside my father's
+will, had his marriage declared invalid, and my mother and her children
+were remanded to slavery." Iola shuddered as she pronounced the horrid
+word, and grew deadly pale; but, regaining her self-possession,
+continued: "Now, that freedom has come, I intend to search for my mother
+until I find her."
+
+"I do not wonder," said Robert, "that we had this war. The nation had
+sinned enough to suffer."
+
+"Yes," said Iola, "if national sins bring down national judgments, then
+the nation is only reaping what it sowed."
+
+"What are your plans for the future, or have you any?" asked Robert.
+
+"I intend offering myself as a teacher in one of the schools which are
+being opened in different parts of the country," replied Iola. "As soon
+as I am able I will begin my search for my dear mother. I will advertise
+for her in the papers, hunt for her in the churches, and use all the
+means in my power to get some tidings of her and my brother Harry. What
+a cruel thing it was to separate us!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVII.
+
+
+FLAMES IN THE SCHOOL-ROOM.
+
+"Good morning," said Dr. Gresham, approaching Robert and Iola. "How are
+you both? You have mended rapidly," turning to Robert, "but then it was
+only a flesh wound. Your general health being good, and your blood in
+excellent condition, it was not hard for you to rally."
+
+"Where have you been, Doctor? I have a faint recollection of having seen
+you on the morning I was brought in from the field, but not since."
+
+"I have been on a furlough. I was running down through exhaustion and
+overwork, and I was compelled to go home for a few weeks' rest. But now,
+as they are about to close the hospital, I shall be permanently
+relieved. I am glad that this cruel strife is over. It seemed as if I
+had lived through ages during these last few years. In the early part of
+the war I lost my arm by a stray shot, and my armless sleeve is one of
+the mementos of battle I shall carry with me through life. Miss Leroy,"
+he continued, turning respectfully to Iola, "would you permit me to ask
+you, as I would have someone ask my sister under the same circumstances,
+if you have matured any plans for the future, or if I can be of the
+least service to you? If so, I would be pleased to render you any
+service in my power."
+
+"My purpose," replied Iola, "is to hunt for my mother, and to find her
+if she is alive. I am willing to go anywhere and do anything to find
+her. But I will need a standpoint from whence I can send out lines of
+inquiry. It must take time, in the disordered state of affairs, even to
+get a clue by which I may discover her whereabouts."
+
+"How would you like to teach?" asked the Doctor. "Schools are being
+opened all around us. Numbers of excellent and superior women are coming
+from the North to engage as teachers of the freed people. Would you be
+willing to take a school among these people? I think it will be uphill
+work. I believe it will take generations to get over the duncery of
+slavery. Some of these poor fellows who came into our camp did not know
+their right hands from their left, nor their ages, nor even the days of
+the month. It took me some time, in a number of cases, to understand
+their language. It saddened my heart to see such ignorance. One day I
+asked one a question, and he answered, "I no shum'."
+
+"What did he mean?" asked Iola.
+
+"That he did not see it," replied the doctor. "Of course, this does not
+apply to all of them. Some of them are wide-awake and sharp as steel
+traps. I think some of that class may be used in helping others."
+
+"I should be very glad to have an opportunity to teach," said Iola. "I
+used to be a great favorite among the colored children on my father's
+plantation."
+
+In a few days after this conversation the hospital was closed. The sick
+and convalescent were removed, and Iola obtained a position as a
+teacher. Very soon Iola realized that while she was heartily appreciated
+by the freedmen, she was an object of suspicion and dislike to their
+former owners. The North had conquered by the supremacy of the sword,
+and the South had bowed to the inevitable. But here was a new army that
+had come with an invasion of ideas, that had come to supplant ignorance
+with knowledge, and it was natural that its members should be unwelcome
+to those who had made it a crime to teach their slaves to read the name
+of the ever blessed Christ. But Iola had found her work, and the freed
+men their friend.
+
+When Iola opened her school she took pains to get acquainted with the
+parents of the children, and she gained their confidence and
+co-operation. Her face was a passport to their hearts. Ignorant of
+books, human faces were the scrolls from which they had been reading for
+ages. They had been the sunshine and shadow of their lives.
+
+Iola had found a school-room in the basement of a colored church, where
+the doors were willingly opened to her. Her pupils came from miles
+around, ready and anxious to get some "book larnin'." Some of the old
+folks were eager to learn, and it was touching to see the eyes which had
+grown dim under the shadows of slavery, donning spectacles and trying to
+make out the words. As Iola had nearly all of her life been accustomed
+to colored children she had no physical repulsions to overcome, no
+prejudices to conquer in dealing with parents and children. In their
+simple childish fashion they would bring her fruits and flowers, and
+gladden her lonely heart with little tokens of affection.
+
+One day a gentleman came to the school and wished to address the
+children. Iola suspended the regular order of the school, and the
+gentleman essayed to talk to them on the achievements of the white race,
+such as building steamboats and carrying on business. Finally, he asked
+how they did it?
+
+"They've got money," chorused the children.
+
+"But how did they get it?"
+
+"They took it from us," chimed the youngsters. Iola smiled, and the
+gentleman was nonplussed; but he could not deny that one of the powers
+of knowledge is the power of the strong to oppress the weak.
+
+The school was soon overcrowded with applicants, and Iola was forced to
+refuse numbers, because their quarters were too cramped. The school was
+beginning to lift up the home, for Iola was not satisfied to teach her
+children only the rudiments of knowledge. She had tried to lay the
+foundation of good character. But the elements of evil burst upon her
+loved and cherished work. One night the heavens were lighted with lurid
+flames, and Iola beheld the school, the pride and joy of her pupils and
+their parents, a smouldering ruin. Iola gazed with sorrowful dismay on
+what seemed the cruel work of an incendiary's torch. While she sat,
+mournfully contemplating the work of destruction, her children formed a
+procession, and, passing by the wreck of their school, sang:--
+
+    "Oh, do not be discouraged,
+       For Jesus is your friend."
+
+As they sang, the tears sprang to Iola's eyes, and she said to herself,
+"I am not despondent of the future of my people; there is too much
+elasticity in their spirits, too much hope in their hearts, to be
+crushed out by unreasoning malice."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XVIII.
+
+
+SEARCHING FOR LOST ONES.
+
+To bind anew the ties which slavery had broken and gather together the
+remnants of his scattered family became the earnest purpose of Robert's
+life. Iola, hopeful that in Robert she had found her mother's brother,
+was glad to know she was not alone in _her_ search. Having sent out
+lines of inquiry in different directions, she was led to hope, from some
+of the replies she had received, that her mother was living somewhere in
+Georgia.
+
+Hearing that a Methodist conference was to convene in that State, and
+being acquainted with the bishop of that district, she made arrangements
+to accompany him thither. She hoped to gather some tidings of her mother
+through the ministers gathered from different parts of that State.
+
+From her brother she had heard nothing since her father's death. On his
+way to the conference, the bishop had an engagement to dedicate a
+church, near the city of C----, in North Carolina. Iola was quite
+willing to stop there a few days, hoping to hear something of Robert
+Johnson's mother. Soon after she had seated herself in the cars she was
+approached by a gentleman, who reached out his hand to her, and greeted
+her with great cordiality. Iola looked up, and recognized him
+immediately as one of her last patients at the hospital. It was none
+other than Robert Johnson.
+
+"I am so glad to meet you," he said. "I am on my way to C---- in search
+of my mother. I want to see the person who sold her last, and, if
+possible, get some clew to the direction in which she went."
+
+"And I," said Iola, "am in search of _my_ mother. I am convinced that
+when we find those for whom we are searching they will prove to be very
+nearly related. Mamma said, before we were parted, that her brother had
+a red spot on his temple. If I could see that spot I should rest assured
+that my mother is your sister."
+
+"Then," said Robert, "I can give you that assurance," and smilingly he
+lifted his hair from his temple, on which was a large, red spot.
+
+"I am satisfied," exclaimed Iola, fixing her eyes, beaming with hope and
+confidence, on Robert. "Oh, I am so glad that I can, without the least
+hesitation, accept your services to join with me in the further search.
+What are your plans?"
+
+"To stop for awhile in C----," said Robert, "and gather all the
+information possible from those who sold and bought my mother. I intend
+to leave no stone un-turned in searching for her."
+
+"Oh, I _do_ hope that you will succeed. I expect to stop over there a
+few days, and I shall be so glad if, before I leave, I hear your search
+has been crowned with success, or, a least, that you have been put on
+the right track. Although I was born and raised in the midst of
+slavery, I had not the least idea of its barbarous selfishness till I
+was forced to pass through it. But we lived so much alone I had no
+opportunity to study it, except on our own plantation. My father and
+mother were very kind to their slaves. But it was slavery, all the same,
+and I hate it, root and branch."
+
+Just then the conductor called out the station.
+
+"We stop here," said Robert. "I am going to see Mrs. Johnson, and hunt
+up some of my old acquaintances. Where do you stop?"
+
+"I don't know," replied Iola. "I expect that friends will be here to
+meet us. Bishop B----, permit me to introduce you to Mr. Robert Johnson,
+whom I have every reason to believe is my mother's brother. Like myself,
+he is engaged in hunting up his lost relatives."
+
+"And I," said Robert, "am very much pleased to know that we are not
+without favorable clues."
+
+"Bishop," said Iola, "Mr. Johnson wishes to know where I am to stop. He
+is going on an exploring expedition, and wishes to let me know the
+result."
+
+"We stop at Mrs. Allston's, 313 New Street," said the bishop. "If I can
+be of any use to you, I am at your service."
+
+"Thank you," said Robert, lifting his hat, as he left them to pursue his
+inquiries about his long-lost mother.
+
+Quickly he trod the old familiar streets which led to his former home.
+He found Mrs. Johnson, but she had aged very fast since the war. She was
+no longer the lithe, active woman, with her proud manner and resolute
+bearing. Her eye had lost its brightness, her step its elasticity, and
+her whole appearance indicated that she was slowly sinking beneath a
+weight of sorrow which was heavier far than her weight of years. When
+she heard that Robert had called to see her she was going to receive him
+in the hall, as she would have done any of her former slaves, but her
+mind immediately changed when she saw him. He was not the light-hearted,
+careless, mischief-loving Robby of former days, but a handsome man,
+with heavy moustache, dark, earnest eyes, and proud military bearing. He
+smiled, and reached out his hand to her. She hardly knew how to address
+him. To her colored people were either boys and girls, or "aunties and
+uncles." She had never in her life addressed a colored person as "Mr. or
+Mrs." To do so now was to violate the social customs of the place. It
+would be like learning a new language in her old age. Robert immediately
+set her at ease by addressing her under the old familiar name of "Miss
+Nancy." This immediately relieved her of all embarrassment. She invited
+him into the sitting-room, and gave him a warm welcome.
+
+"Well, Robby," she said, "I once thought that you would have been the
+last one to leave me. You know I never ill-treated you, and I gave you
+everything you needed. People said that I was spoiling you. I thought
+you were as happy as the days were long. When I heard of other people's
+servants leaving them I used to say to myself, 'I can trust my Bobby; he
+will stick to me to the last.' But I fooled myself that time. Soon as
+the Yankee soldiers got in sight you left me without saying a word. That
+morning I came down into the kitchen and asked Linda, 'Where's Robert?
+Why hasn't he set the table?' She said 'she hadn't seen you since the
+night before.' I thought maybe you were sick, and I went to see, but you
+were not in your room. I couldn't believe at first that you were gone.
+Wasn't I always good to you?"
+
+"Oh, Miss Nancy," replied Robert; "you were good, but freedom was
+better."
+
+"Yes," she said, musingly, "I suppose I would have done the same. But,
+Robby, it did go hard with me at first. However, I soon found out that
+my neighbors had been going through the same thing. But its all over
+now. Let by-gones be by-gones. What are you doing now, and where are
+you living?"
+
+"I am living in the city of P----. I have opened a hardware store there.
+But just now I am in search of my mother and sister."
+
+"I hope that you may find them."
+
+"How long," asked Robert, "do you think it has been since they left
+here?"
+
+"Let me see; it must have been nearly thirty years. You got my letter?"
+
+"Yes, ma'am; thank you."
+
+"There have been great changes since you left here," Mrs. Johnson said.
+"Gundover died, and a number of colored men have banded together, bought
+his plantation, and divided it among themselves. And I hear they have a
+very nice settlement out there. I hope, since the Government has set
+them free, that they will succeed."
+
+After Robert's interview with Mrs. Johnson he thought he would visit the
+settlement and hunt up his old friends. He easily found the place. It
+was on a clearing in Gundover's woods, where Robert and Uncle Daniel had
+held their last prayer-meeting. Now the gloomy silence of those woods
+was broken by the hum of industry, the murmur of cheerful voices, and
+the merry laughter of happy children. Where they had trodden with fear
+and misgiving, freedmen walked with light and bounding hearts. The
+school-house had taken the place of the slave-pen and auction-block.
+"How is yer, ole boy?" asked one laborer of another.
+
+"Everything is lobly," replied the other. The blue sky arching overhead
+and the beauty of the scenery justified the expression.
+
+Gundover had died soon after the surrender. Frank Anderson had grown
+reckless and drank himself to death. His brother Tom had been killed in
+battle. Their mother, who was Gundover's daughter, had died insane.
+Their father had also passed away. The defeat of the Confederates, the
+loss of his sons, and the emancipation of his slaves, were blows from
+which he never recovered. As Robert passed leisurely along, delighted
+with the evidences of thrift and industry which constantly met his eye,
+he stopped to admire a garden filled with beautiful flowers, clambering
+vines, and rustic adornments.
+
+On the porch sat an elderly woman, darning stockings, the very
+embodiment of content and good humor. Robert looked inquiringly at her.
+On seeing him, she almost immediately exclaimed, "Shore as I'se born,
+dat's Robert! Look yere, honey, whar did yer come from? I'll gib my head
+fer a choppin' block ef dat ain't Miss Nancy's Bob. Ain't yer our Bobby?
+Shore yer is."
+
+"Of course I am," responded Robert. "It isn't anybody else. How did you
+know me?"
+
+"How did I know yer? By dem mischeebous eyes, ob course. I'd a knowed
+yer if I had seed yer in Europe."
+
+"In Europe, Aunt Linda? Where's that?"
+
+"I don't know. I specs its some big city, somewhar. But yer looks jis'
+splendid. Yer looks good 'nuff ter kiss."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Linda, don't say that. You make me blush."
+
+"Oh you go 'long wid yer. I specs yer's got a nice little wife up dar
+whar yer comes from, dat kisses yer ebery day, an' Sunday, too."
+
+"Is that the way your old man does you?"
+
+"Oh, no, not a bit. He isn't one ob de kissin' kine. But sit down," she
+said, handing Robert a chair. "Won't yer hab a glass ob milk? Boy, I'se
+a libin' in clover. Neber 'spected ter see sich good times in all my
+born days."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda," said Robert, seating himself near her, and drinking
+the glass of milk which she had handed him, "how goes the battle? How
+have you been getting on since freedom?"
+
+"Oh, fust rate, fust rate! Wen freedom com'd I jist lit out ob Miss
+Johnson's kitchen soon as I could. I wanted ter re'lize I war free, an'
+I couldn't, tell I got out er de sight and soun' ob ole Miss. When de
+war war ober an' de sogers war still stopping' yere, I made pies an'
+cakes, sole em to de sogers, an' jist made money han' ober fist. An' I
+kep' on a workin' an' a savin' till my ole man got back from de war wid
+his wages and his bounty money. I felt right set up an' mighty big wen
+we counted all dat money. We had neber seen so much money in our lives
+befo', let alone hab it fer ourselbs. An' I sez, 'John, you take dis
+money an' git a nice place wid it.' An' he sez, 'Dere's no use tryin',
+kase dey don't want ter sell us any lan'.' Ole Gundover said, 'fore he
+died, dat he would let de lan' grow up in trees 'fore he'd sell it to
+us. An' dere war Mr. Brayton; he buyed some lan' and sole it to some
+cullud folks, an' his ole frien's got so mad wid him dat dey wouldn't
+speak ter him, an' he war borned down yere. I tole ole Miss Anderson's
+daughter dat we wanted ter git some homes ob our ownselbs. She sez, 'Den
+you won't want ter work for us?' Jis' de same as ef we could eat an'
+drink our houses. I tell yer, Robby, dese white folks don't know
+eberything."
+
+"That's a fact, Aunt Linda."
+
+"Den I sez ter John, 'wen one door shuts anoder opens.' An' shore
+'nough, ole Gundover died, an' his place war all in debt, an' had to be
+sole. Some Jews bought it, but dey didn't want to farm it, so dey gib us
+a chance to buy it. Dem Jews hez been right helpful to cullud people wen
+dey hab lan' to sell. I reckon dey don't keer who buys it so long as dey
+gits de money. Well, John didn't gib in at fust; didn't want to let on
+his wife knowed more dan he did, an' dat he war ruled ober by a woman.
+Yer know he is an' ole Firginian, an' some ob dem ole Firginians do so
+lub to rule a woman. But I kep' naggin at him, till I specs he got tired
+of my tongue, an' he went and buyed dis piece ob lan'. Dis house war on
+it, an' war all gwine to wrack. It used to belong to John's ole marster.
+His wife died right in dis house, an' arter dat her husband went right
+to de dorgs; an' now he's in de pore-house. My! but ain't dem tables
+turned. When we knowed it war our own, warn't my ole man proud! I seed
+it in him, but he wouldn't let on. Ain't you men powerful 'ceitful?"
+
+"Oh, Aunt Linda, don't put me in with the rest!"
+
+"I don't know 'bout dat. Put you all in de bag for 'ceitfulness, an' I
+don't know which would git out fust."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda, I suppose by this time you know how to read and
+write?"
+
+"No, chile, sence freedom's com'd I'se bin scratchin' too hard to get a
+libin' to put my head down to de book."
+
+"But, Aunt Linda, it would be such company when your husband is away, to
+take a book. Do you never get lonesome?"
+
+"Chile, I ain't got no time ter get lonesome. Ef you had eber so many
+chickens to feed, an' pigs squealin' fer somethin' ter eat, an' yore
+ducks an' geese squakin' 'roun' yer, yer wouldn't hab time ter git
+lonesome."
+
+"But, Aunt Linda, you might be sick for months, and think what a comfort
+it would be if you could read your Bible."
+
+"Oh, I could hab prayin' and singin'. Dese people is mighty good 'bout
+prayin' by de sick. Why, Robby, I think it would gib me de hysterics ef
+I war to try to git book larnin' froo my pore ole head. How long is yer
+gwine to stay? An' whar is yer stoppin?"
+
+"I got here to-day," said Robert, "but I expect to stay several days."
+
+"Well, I wants yer to meet my ole man, an' talk 'bout ole times.
+Couldn't yer come an' stop wid me, or isn't my house sniptious 'nuff?"
+
+"Yes, thank you; but there is a young lady in town whom I think is my
+niece, my sister's daughter, and I want to be with her all I can."
+
+"Your niece! Whar did you git any niece from?"
+
+"Don't you remember," asked Robert, "that my mother had a little
+daughter, when Mrs. Johnson sold her? Well, I believe this young lady is
+that daughter's child."
+
+"Laws a marcy!" exclaimed Aunt Linda, "yer don't tell me so! Whar did
+yer ketch up wid her?"
+
+"I met her first," said Robert, "at the hospital here, when our poor Tom
+was dying; and when I was wounded at Five Forks she attended me in the
+field hospital there. She was just as good as gold."
+
+"Well, did I eber! You jis' fotch dat chile to see me, ef she ain't too
+fine. I'se pore, but I'se clean, an' I ain't forgot how ter git up good
+dinners. Now, I wants ter hab a good talk 'bout our feller-sarvants."
+
+"Yes, and I," said Robert, "want to hear all about Uncle Daniel, and
+Jennie, and Uncle Ben Tunnel."
+
+"Well, I'se got lots an' gobs ter tell yer. I'se kep' track ob dem all.
+Aunt Katie died an' went ter hebben in a blaze ob glory. Uncle Dan'el
+stayed on de place till Marse Robert com'd back. When de war war ober he
+war smashed all ter pieces. I did pity him from de bottom ob my heart.
+When he went ter de war he looked so brave an' han'some; an' wen he
+com'd back he looked orful. 'Fore he went he gib Uncle Dan'el a bag full
+ob money ter take kere ob. 'An wen he com'd back Uncle Dan'el gibed him
+ebery cent ob it. It warn't ebery white pusson he could hab trusted wid
+it. 'Cause yer know, Bobby, money's a mighty temptin' thing. Dey tells
+me dat Marster Robert los' a heap ob property by de war; but Marse
+Robert war always mighty good ter Uncle Dan'el and Aunt Katie. He war
+wid her wen she war dyin' an' she got holt his han' an' made him promise
+dat he would meet her in glory. I neber seed anybody so happy in my
+life. She singed an' prayed ter de last. I tell you dis ole time
+religion is good 'nuff fer me. Mr. Robert didn't stay yere long arter
+her, but I beliebs he went all right. But 'fore he went he looked out
+fer Uncle Dan'el. Did you see dat nice little cabin down dere wid de
+green shutters an' nice little garden in front? Well, 'fore Marse Robert
+died he gib Uncle Dan'el dat place, an' Miss Mary and de chillen looks
+arter him yet; an' he libs jis' as snug as a bug in a rug. I'se gwine
+ter axe him ter take supper wid you. He'll be powerful glad ter see
+you."
+
+"Do you ever go to see old Miss?" asked Robert.
+
+"Oh, yes; I goes ebery now and den. But she's jis' fell froo. Ole
+Johnson jis' drunk hisself to death. He war de biggest guzzler I eber
+seed in my life. Why, dat man he drunk up ebery thing he could lay his
+han's on. Sometimes he would go 'roun' tryin' to borrer money from pore
+cullud folks. 'Twas rale drefful de way dat pore feller did frow hisself
+away. But drink did it all. I tell you, Bobby, dat drink's a drefful
+thing wen it gits de upper han' ob you. You'd better steer clar ob it."
+
+"That's so," assented Robert.
+
+"I know'd Miss Nancy's fadder and mudder. Dey war mighty rich. Some ob
+de real big bugs. Marse Jim used to know dem, an' come ober ter de
+plantation, an' eat an' drink wen he got ready, an' stay as long as he
+choose. Ole Cousins used to have wine at dere table ebery day, an' Marse
+Jim war mighty fon' ob dat wine, an' sometimes he would drink till he
+got quite boozy. Ole Cousins liked him bery well, till he foun' out he
+wanted his darter, an' den he didn't want him fer rags nor patches. But
+Miss Nancy war mighty headstrong, an' allers liked to hab her own way;
+an' dis time she got it. But didn't she step her foot inter it? Ole
+Johnson war mighty han'some, but when dat war said all war said. She
+run'd off an' got married, but wen she got down she war too spunkey to
+axe her pa for anything. Wen you war wid her, yer know she only took big
+bugs. But wen de war com'd 'roun' it tore her all ter pieces, an' now
+she's as pore as Job's turkey. I feel's right sorry fer her. Well,
+Robby, things is turned 'roun' mighty quare. Ole Mistus war up den, an'
+I war down; now, she's down, an' I'se up. But I pities her, 'cause she
+warn't so bad arter all. De wuss thing she eber did war ta sell your
+mudder, an' she wouldn't hab done dat but she snatched de whip out ob
+her han' an gib her a lickin'. Now I belieb in my heart she war 'fraid
+ob your mudder arter dat. But we women had ter keep 'em from whippin'
+us, er dey'd all de time been libin' on our bones. She had no man ter
+whip us 'cept dat ole drunken husband ob hern, an' he war allers too
+drunk ter whip hisself. He jis' wandered off, an' I reckon he died in
+somebody's pore-house. He warn't no 'count nohow you fix it. Weneber I
+goes to town I carries her some garden sass, er a little milk an'
+butter. An' she's mighty glad ter git it. I ain't got nothin' agin her.
+She neber struck me a lick in her life, an' I belieb in praising de
+bridge dat carries me ober. Dem Yankees set me free, an' I thinks a
+powerful heap ob dem. But it does rile me ter see dese mean white men
+comin' down yere an' settin' up dere grog-shops, tryin' to fedder dere
+nests sellin' licker to pore culled people. Deys de bery kine ob men dat
+used ter keep dorgs to ketch de runaways. I'd be chokin' fer a drink
+'fore I'd eber spen' a cent wid dem, a spreadin' dere traps to git de
+black folks' money. You jis' go down town 'fore sun up to-morrer
+mornin' an' you see ef dey don't hab dem bars open to sell dere drams to
+dem hard workin' culled people 'fore dey goes ter work. I thinks some
+niggers is mighty big fools."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Linda, don't run down your race. Leave that for the white
+people."
+
+"I ain't runnin' down my people. But a fool's a fool, wether he's white
+or black. An' I think de nigger who will spen' his hard-earned money in
+dese yere new grog-shops is de biggest kine ob a fool, an' I sticks ter
+dat. You know we didn't hab all dese low places in slave times. An' what
+is dey fer, but to get the people's money. An' its a shame how dey do
+sling de licker 'bout 'lection times."
+
+"But don't the temperance people want the colored people to vote the
+temperance ticket?"
+
+"Yes, but some ob de culled people gits mighty skittish ef dey tries to
+git em to vote dare ticket 'lection time, an' keeps dem at a proper
+distance wen de 'lection's ober. Some ob dem say dere's a trick behine
+it, an' don't want to tech it. Dese white folks could do a heap wid de
+culled folks ef dey'd only treat em right."
+
+"When our people say there is a trick behind it," said Robert, "I only
+wish they could see the trick before it--the trick of worse than wasting
+their money, and of keeping themselves and families poorer and more
+ignorant than there is any need for them to be."
+
+"Well, Bobby, I beliebs we might be a people ef it warn't for dat
+mizzable drink. An' Robby, I jis' tells yer what I wants; I wants some
+libe man to come down yere an' splain things ter dese people. I don't
+mean a politic man, but a man who'll larn dese people how to bring up
+dere chillen, to keep our gals straight, an' our boys from runnin' in de
+saloons an' gamblin' dens."
+
+"Don't your preachers do that?" asked Robert.
+
+"Well, some ob dem does, an' some ob dem doesn't. An' wen dey preaches,
+I want dem to practice wat dey preach. Some ob dem says dey's called,
+but I jis' thinks laziness called some ob dem. An' I thinks since
+freedom come deres some mighty pore sticks set up for preachers. Now
+dere's John Anderson, Tom's brudder; you 'member Tom."
+
+"Yes; as brave a fellow and as honest as ever stepped in shoe leather."
+
+"Well, his brudder war mighty diffrent. He war down in de lower kentry
+wen de war war ober. He war mighty smart, an' had a good head-piece, an'
+a orful glib tongue. He set up store an' sole whisky, an' made a lot ob
+money. Den he wanted ter go to de legislatur. Now what should he do but
+make out he'd got 'ligion, an' war called to preach. He had no more
+'ligion dan my ole dorg. But he had money an' built a meetin' house,
+whar he could hole meeting, an' hab funerals; an' you know cullud folks
+is mighty great on funerals. Well dat jis' tuck wid de people, an' he
+got 'lected to de legislatur. Den he got a fine house, an' his ole wife
+warn't good 'nuff for him. Den dere war a young school-teacher, an' he
+begun cuttin' his eyes at her. But she war as deep in de mud as he war
+in de mire, an' he jis' gib up his ole wife and married her, a fusty
+thing. He war a mean ole hypocrit, an' I wouldn't sen' fer him to bury
+my cat. Robby, I'se down on dese kine ob preachers like a thousand
+bricks."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda, all the preachers are not like him."
+
+"No; I knows dat; not by a jug full. We's got some mighty good men down
+yere, an' we's glad when dey comes, an' orful sorry when dey goes 'way.
+De las preacher we had war a mighty good man. He didn't like too much
+hollerin'."
+
+"Perhaps," said Robert, "he thought it were best for only one to speak
+at a time."
+
+"I specs so. His wife war de nicest and sweetest lady dat eber I did
+see. None ob yer airish, stuck up folks, like a tarrapin carryin'
+eberything on its back. She used ter hab meetins fer de mudders, an'
+larn us how to raise our chillen, an' talk so putty to de chillen. I
+sartinly did lub dat woman."
+
+"Where is she now?" asked Robert.
+
+"De Conference moved dem 'bout thirty miles from yere. Deys gwine to hab
+a big meetin' ober dere next Sunday. Don't you 'member dem meetins we
+used to hab in de woods? We don't hab to hide like we did den. But it
+don't seem as ef de people had de same good 'ligion we had den. 'Pears
+like folks is took up wid makin' money an' politics."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda, don't you wish those good old days would come back?"
+
+"No, chile; neber! neber! Wat fer you take me? I'd ruther lib in a
+corn-crib. Freedom needn't keep me outer heben; an' ef I'se sich a fool
+as ter lose my 'ligion cause I'se free, I oughtn' ter git dere."
+
+"But, Aunt Linda, if old Miss were able to take care of you, wouldn't
+you just as leave be back again?"
+
+There was a faint quiver of indignation in Aunt Linda's voice, as she
+replied:--
+
+"Don't yer want yer freedom? Well I wants ter pat my free foot.
+Halleluyah! But, Robby, I wants yer ter go ter dat big meetin' de wuss
+kine."
+
+"How will I get there?" asked Robert.
+
+"Oh, dat's all right. My ole man's got two ob de nicest mules you eber
+set yer eyes on. It'll jis' do yer good ter look at dem. I 'spect you'll
+see some ob yer ole frens dere. Dere's a nice settlemen' of cullud folks
+ober dere, an' I wants yer to come an' bring dat young lady. I wants dem
+folks to see wat nice folks I kin bring to de meetin'. I hope's yer
+didn't lose all your 'ligion in de army."
+
+"Oh, I hope not," replied Robert.
+
+"Oh, chile, yer mus' be shore 'bout dat. I don't want yer to ride hope's
+hoss down to torment. Now be shore an' come to-morrer an' bring dat
+young lady, an' take supper wid me. I'se all on nettles to see dat
+chile."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIX.
+
+
+STRIKING CONTRASTS.
+
+The next day, Robert, accompanied by Iola, went to the settlement to
+take supper with Aunt Linda, and a very luscious affair it was. Her
+fingers had not lost their skill since she had tasted the sweets of
+freedom. Her biscuits were just as light and flaky as ever. Her jelly
+was as bright as amber, and her preserves were perfectly delicious.
+After she had set the table she stood looking in silent admiration,
+chuckling to herself: "Ole Mistus can't set sich a table as dat. She
+ought'er be yere to see it. Specs 'twould make her mouf water. Well, I
+mus' let by-gones be by-gones. But dis yere freedom's mighty good."
+
+Aunt Linda had invited Uncle Daniel, and, wishing to give him a pleasant
+surprise, she had refrained from telling him that Robert Johnson was the
+one she wished him to meet.
+
+"Do you know dis gemmen?" said Aunt Linda to Uncle Daniel, when the
+latter arrived.
+
+"Well, I can't say's I do. My eyes is gittin dim, an I disremembers
+him."
+
+"Now jis' you look right good at him. Don't yer 'member him?"
+
+Uncle Daniel looked puzzled and, slowly scanning Robert's features,
+said: "He do look like somebody I used ter know, but I can't make him
+out ter save my life. I don't know whar to place him. Who is de gemmen,
+ennyhow?"
+
+"Why, Uncle Dan'el," replied Aunt Linda, "dis is Robby; Miss Nancy's
+bad, mischeebous Robby, dat war allers playin' tricks on me."
+
+"Well, shore's I'se born, ef dis ain't our ole Bobby!" exclaimed Uncle
+Daniel, delightedly. "Why, chile, whar did yer come from? Thought you
+war dead an' buried long 'go."
+
+"Why, Uncle Daniel, did you send anybody to kill me?" asked Robert,
+laughingly.
+
+"Oh, no'n 'deed, chile! but I yeard dat you war killed in de battle, an'
+I never 'spected ter see you agin."
+
+"Well, here I am," replied Robert, "large as life, and just as natural.
+And this young lady, Uncle Daniel, I believe is my niece." As he spoke
+he turned to Iola. "Do you remember my mother?"
+
+"Oh, yes," said Uncle Daniel, looking intently at Iola as she stepped
+forward and cordially gave him her hand.
+
+"Well, I firmly believe," continued Robert, "that this is the daughter
+of the little girl whom Miss Nancy sold away with my mother."
+
+"Well, I'se rale glad ter see her. She puts me mighty much in mine ob
+dem days wen we war all young togedder; wen Miss Nancy sed, 'Harriet war
+too high fer her.' It jis' seems like yisterday wen I yeard Miss Nancy
+say, 'No house could flourish whar dere war two mistresses.' Well, Mr.
+Robert--"
+
+"Oh, no, no, Uncle Daniel," interrupted Robert, "don't say that! Call me
+Robby or Bob, just as you used to."
+
+"Well, Bobby, I'se glad klar from de bottom of my heart ter see yer."
+
+"Even if you wouldn't go with us when we left?"
+
+"Oh, Bobby, dem war mighty tryin' times. You boys didn't know it, but
+Marster Robert hab giben me a bag ob money ter take keer ob, an' I
+promised him I'd do it an' I had ter be ez good ez my word."
+
+"Oh, Uncle Daniel, why didn't you tell us boys all about it? We could
+have helped you take care of it."
+
+"Now, wouldn't dat hab bin smart ter let on ter you chaps, an' hab you
+huntin' fer it from Dan ter Barsheba? I specs some ob you would bin a
+rootin' fer it yit!"
+
+"Well, Uncle Daniel, we were young then; I can't tell what we would have
+done if we had found it. But we are older now."
+
+"Yes, yer older, but I wouldn't put it pas' yer eben now, ef yer foun'
+out whar it war."
+
+"Yes," said Iola, laughing, "they say 'caution is the parent of
+safety.'"
+
+"Money's a mighty tempting thing," said Robert, smiling.
+
+"But, Robby, dere's nothin' like a klar conscience; a klar conscience,
+Robby!"
+
+Just then Aunt Linda, who had been completing the preparations for her
+supper, entered the room with her husband, and said, "Salters, let me
+interdoos you ter my fren', Mr. Robert Johnson, an' his niece, Miss
+Leroy."
+
+"Why, is it possible," exclaimed Robert, rising, and shaking hands,
+"that you are Aunt Linda's husband?"
+
+"Dat's what de parson sed," replied Salters.
+
+"I thought," pursued Robert, "that your name was John Andrews. It was
+such when you were in my company."
+
+"All de use I'se got fer dat name is ter git my money wid it; an' wen
+dat's done, all's done. Got 'nuff ob my ole Marster in slave times,
+widout wearin' his name in freedom. Wen I got done wid him, I got done
+wid his name. Wen I 'listed, I war John Andrews; and wen I gits my
+pension, I'se John Andrews; but now Salters is my name, an' I likes it
+better."
+
+"But how came you to be Aunt Linda's husband? Did you get married since
+the war?"
+
+"Lindy an' me war married long 'fore de war. But my ole Marster sole me
+away from her an' our little gal, an' den sole her chile ter somebody
+else. Arter freedom, I hunted up our little gal, an' foun' her. She war
+a big woman den. Den I com'd right back ter dis place an' foun' Lindy.
+She hedn't married agin, nuther hed I; so we jis' let de parson marry us
+out er de book; an' we war mighty glad ter git togedder agin, an' feel
+hitched togedder fer life."
+
+"Well, Uncle Daniel," said Robert, turning the conversation toward him,
+"you and Uncle Ben wouldn't go with us, but you came out all right at
+last."
+
+"Yes, indeed," said Aunt Linda, "Ben got inter a stream of luck. Arter
+freedom com'd, de people had a heap of fath in Ben; an' wen dey wanted
+some one to go ter Congress dey jist voted for Ben ter go. An' he went,
+too. An' wen Salters went to Washin'ton to git his pension, who should
+he see dere wid dem big men but our Ben, lookin' jist as big as any ob
+dem."
+
+"An' it did my ole eyes good jist ter see it," broke in Salters; "if I
+couldn't go dere myself, I war mighty glad to see some one ob my people
+dat could. I felt like de boy who, wen somebody said he war gwine to
+slap off his face, said, 'Yer kin slap off my face, but I'se got a big
+brudder, an' you can't slap off his face.' I went to see him 'fore I lef,
+and he war jist de same as he war wen we war boys togedder. He hadn't
+got de big head a bit."
+
+"I reckon Mirandy war mighty sorry she didn't stay wid him. I know I
+should be," said Aunt Linda.
+
+"Uncle Daniel," asked Robert, "are you still preaching?"
+
+"Yes, chile, I'se still firing off de Gospel gun."
+
+"I hear some of the Northern folks are down here teaching theology, that
+is, teaching young men how to preach. Why don't you study theology?"
+
+"Look a yere, boy, I'se been a preachin' dese thirty years, an' you come
+yere a tellin' me 'bout studying yore ologies. I larn'd my 'ology at de
+foot ob de cross. You bin dar?"
+
+"Dear Uncle Daniel," said Iola, "the moral aspect of the nation would be
+changed if it would learn at the same cross to subordinate the spirit of
+caste to the spirit of Christ."
+
+"Does yer 'member Miss Nancy's Harriet," asked Aunt Linda, "dat she sole
+away kase she wouldn't let her whip her? Well, we think dis is Harriet's
+gran'chile. She war sole away from her mar, an' now she's a lookin' fer
+her."
+
+"Well, I hopes she may fine her," replied Salters. "I war sole 'way from
+my mammy wen I war eighteen mont's ole, an' I wouldn't know her now from
+a bunch ob turnips."
+
+"I," said Iola, "am on my way South seeking for my mother, and I shall
+not give up until I find her."
+
+"Come," said Aunt Linda, "we mustn't stan' yer talkin', or de grub'll
+git cole. Come, frens, sit down, an' eat some ob my pore supper."
+
+Aunt Linda sat at the table in such a flutter of excitement that she
+could hardly eat, but she gazed with intense satisfaction on her guests.
+Robert sat on her right hand, contrasting Aunt Linda's pleasant
+situation with the old days in Mrs. Johnson's kitchen, where he had
+played his pranks upon her, and told her the news of the war.
+
+Over Iola there stole a spirit of restfulness. There was something so
+motherly in Aunt Linda's manner that it seemed to recall the bright,
+sunshiny days when she used to nestle in Mam Liza's arms, in her own
+happy home. The conversation was full of army reminiscences and
+recollections of the days of slavery. Uncle Daniel was much interested,
+and, as they rose from the table, exclaimed:--
+
+"Robby, seein' yer an' hearin' yer talk, almos' puts new springs inter
+me. I feel 'mos' like I war gittin' younger."
+
+After the supper, Salters and his guests returned to the front room,
+which Aunt Linda regarded with so much pride, and on which she bestowed
+so much care.
+
+"Well, Captin," said Salters, "I neber 'spected ter see you agin. Do you
+know de las' time I seed yer? Well, you war on a stretcher, an' four ob
+us war carryin' you ter de hospital. War you much hurt?
+
+"No," replied Robert, "it was only a flesh wound; and this young lady
+nursed me so carefully that I soon got over it."
+
+"Is dat de way you foun' her?"
+
+"Yes, Andrews,"--
+
+"Salters, ef you please," interrupted Salters. I'se only Andrews wen I
+gits my money."
+
+"Well, Salters," continued Robert, "our freedom was a costly thing. Did
+you know that Captain Sybil was killed in one of the last battles of the
+war? These young chaps, who are taking it so easy, don't know the
+hardships through which we older ones passed. But all the battles are
+not fought, nor all the victories won. The colored man has escaped from
+one slavery, and I don't want him to fall into another. I want the young
+folks to keep their brains clear, and their right arms strong, to fight
+the battles of life manfully, and take their places alongside of every
+other people in this country. And I cannot see what is to hinder them if
+they get a chance."
+
+"I don't nuther," said Salters. "I don't see dat dey drinks any more dan
+anybody else, nor dat dere is any meanness or debilment dat a black man
+kin do dat a white man can't keep step wid him."
+
+"Yes," assented Robert, "but while a white man is stealing a thousand
+dollars, a black man is getting into trouble taking a few chickens."
+
+"All that may be true," said Iola, "but there are some things a white
+man can do that we cannot afford to do."
+
+"I beliebs eberybody, Norf and Souf, is lookin' at us; an' some ob dem
+ain't got no good blood fer us, nohow you fix it," said Salters.
+
+"I specs cullud folks mus' hab done somethin'," interposed Aunt Linda.
+
+"O, nonsense," said Robert. "I don't think they are any worse than the
+white people. I don't believe, if we had the power, we would do any
+more lynching, burning, and murdering than they do."
+
+"Dat's so," said Aunt Linda, "it's ralely orful how our folks hab been
+murdered sence de war. But I don't think dese young folks is goin' ter
+take things as we's allers done."
+
+"We war cowed down from the beginnin'," said Uncle Daniel, "but dese
+young folks ain't comin' up dat way."
+
+"No," said Salters, "fer one night arter some ob our pore people had
+been killed, an' some ob our women had run'd away 'bout seventeen miles,
+my gran'son, looking me squar in de face, said: 'Ain't you got five
+fingers? Can't you pull a trigger as well as a white man?' I tell yer,
+Cap, dat jis' got to me, an' I made up my mine dat my boy should neber
+call me a coward."
+
+"It is not to be expected," said Robert, "that these young people are
+going to put up with things as we did, when we weren't permitted to hold
+a meeting by ourselves, or to own a club or learn to read."
+
+"I tried," said Salters, "to git a little out'er de book wen I war in de
+army. On Sundays I sometimes takes a book an' tries to make out de
+words, but my eyes is gittin' dim an' de letters all run togedder, an' I
+gits sleepy, an' ef yer wants to put me to sleep jis' put a book in my
+han'. But wen it comes to gittin' out a stan' ob cotton, an' plantin'
+corn, I'se dere all de time. But dat gran'son ob mine is smart as a
+steel trap. I specs he'll be a preacher."
+
+Salters looked admiringly at his grandson, who sat grinning in the
+corner, munching a pear he had brought from the table.
+
+"Yes," said Aunt Linda, "his fadder war killed by the Secesh, one night,
+comin' home from a politic meetin', an' his pore mudder died a few
+weeks arter, an' we mean to make a man ob him."
+
+"He's got to larn to work fust," said Salters, "an' den ef he's right
+smart I'se gwine ter sen' him ter college. An' ef he can't get a libin'
+one way, he kin de oder."
+
+"Yes," said Iola, "I hope he will turn out an excellent young man, for
+the greatest need of the race is noble, earnest men, and true women."
+
+"Job," said Salters, turning to his grandson, "tell Jake ter hitch up de
+mules, an' you stay dere an' help him. We's all gwine ter de big
+meetin'. Yore grandma hab set her heart on goin', an' it'll be de same
+as a spell ob sickness ef she don't hab a chance to show her bes' bib
+an' tucker. That ole gal's as proud as a peacock."
+
+"Now, John Salters," exclaimed Aunt Linda, "ain't you 'shamed ob
+yourself? Allers tryin' to poke fun at yer pore wife. Never mine; wait
+till I'se gone, an' you'll miss me."
+
+"Ef I war single," said Salters, "I could git a putty young gal, but it
+wouldn't be so easy wid you."
+
+"Why not?" said Iola, smiling.
+
+"'Cause young men don't want ole hens, an' ole men want young pullets,"
+was Salter's reply.
+
+"Robby, honey," said Aunt Linda, "when you gits a wife, don't treat her
+like dat man treats me."
+
+"Oh, his head's level," answered Robert; "at least it was in the army."
+
+"Dat's jis' de way; you see dat, Miss Iola? One man takin' up for de
+oder. But I'll be eben wid you bof. I must go now an' git ready."
+
+Iola laughed. The homely enjoyment of that evening was very welcome to
+her after the trying scenes through which she had passed. Further
+conversation was interrupted by the appearance of the wagon, drawn by
+two fine mules. John Salters stopped joking his wife to admire his
+mules.
+
+"Jis' look at dem," he said. "Ain't dey beauties? I bought 'em out ob my
+bounty-money. Arter de war war ober I had a little money, an' I war
+gwine ter rent a plantation on sheers an' git out a good stan' ob
+cotton. Cotton war bringin' orful high prices den, but Lindy said to me,
+'Now, John, you'se got a lot ob money, an' you'd better salt it down.
+I'd ruther lib on a little piece ob lan' ob my own dan a big piece ob
+somebody else's. Well, I says to Lindy, I dun know nuthin' 'bout buyin'
+lan', an' I'se 'fraid arter I'se done buyed it an' put all de marrer ob
+dese bones in it, dat somebody's far-off cousin will come an' say de
+title ain't good, an' I'll lose it all."
+
+"You're right thar, John," said Uncle Daniel. "White man's so unsartain,
+black man's nebber safe."
+
+"But somehow," continued Salters, "Lindy warn't satisfied wid rentin',
+so I buyed a piece ob lan', an' I'se glad now I'se got it. Lindy's got a
+lot ob gumption; knows most as much as a man. She ain't got dat long
+head fer nuffin. She's got lots ob sense, but I don't like to tell her
+so."
+
+"Why not?" asked Iola. "Do you think it would make her feel too happy?"
+
+"Well, it don't do ter tell you women how much we thinks ob you. It sets
+you up too much. Ole Gundover's overseer war my marster, an' he used ter
+lib in dis bery house. I'se fixed it up sence I'se got it. Now I'se
+better off dan he is, 'cause he tuck to drink, an' all his frens is
+gone, an' he's in de pore-house."
+
+Just then Linda came to the door with her baskets.
+
+"Now, Lindy, ain't you ready yet? Do hurry up."
+
+"Yes, I'se ready, but things wouldn't go right ef you didn't hurry me."
+
+"Well, put your chicken fixins an' cake right in yere. Captin, you'll
+ride wid me, an' de young lady an' my ole woman'll take de back seat.
+Uncle Dan'el, dere's room for you ef you'll go."
+
+"No, I thank you. It's time fer ole folks to go to bed. Good night! An',
+Bobby, I hopes to see you agin'."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XX.
+
+
+A REVELATION.
+
+It was a lovely evening for the journey. The air was soft and balmy. The
+fields and hedges were redolent with flowers. Not a single cloud
+obscured the brightness of the moon or the splendor of the stars. The
+ancient trees were festooned with moss, which hung like graceful
+draperies. Ever and anon a startled hare glided over the path, and
+whip-poor-wills and crickets broke the restful silence of the night.
+Robert rode quietly along, quaffing the beauty of the scene and thinking
+of his boyish days, when he gathered nuts and wild plums in those woods;
+he also indulged pleasant reminiscences of later years, when, with Uncle
+Daniel and Tom Anderson, he attended the secret prayer-meetings. Iola
+rode along, conversing with Aunt Linda, amused and interested at the
+quaintness of her speech and the shrewdness of her intellect. To her the
+ride was delightful.
+
+"Does yer know dis place, Robby," asked Aunt Linda, as they passed an
+old resort.
+
+"I should think I did," replied Robert. "It is the place where we held
+our last prayer-meeting."
+
+"An' dere's dat ole broken pot we used, ter tell 'bout de war. But
+warn't ole Miss hoppin' wen she foun' out you war goin' to de war! I
+thought she'd go almos' wile. Now, own up, Robby, didn't you feel kine
+ob mean to go off widout eben biddin' her good bye? An' I ralely think
+ole Miss war fon' ob yer. Now, own up, honey, didn't yer feel a little
+down in de mouf wen yer lef' her."
+
+"Not much," responded Robert. "I only thought she was getting paid back
+for selling my mother."
+
+"Dat's so, Robby! yore mudder war a likely gal, wid long black hair, an'
+kine ob ginger-bread color. An' you neber hearn tell ob her sence dey
+sole her to Georgia?"
+
+"Never," replied Robert, "but I would give everything I have on earth to
+see her once more. I _do_ hope, if she is living, that I may meet her
+before I die."
+
+"You's right, boy, cause she lub'd you as she lub'd her own life. Many a
+time hes she set in my ole cabin an' cried 'bout yer wen you war fas'
+asleep. It's all ober now, but I'se gwine to hole up fer dem Yankees dat
+gib me my freedom, an' sent dem nice ladies from de Norf to gib us some
+sense. Some ob dese folks calls em nigger teachers, an' won't hab nuffin
+to do wid 'em, but I jis' thinks dey's splendid. But dere's some
+triflin' niggers down yere who'll sell der votes for almost nuffin. Does
+you 'member Jake Williams an' Gundover's Tom? Well dem two niggers is de
+las' ob pea-time. Dey's mighty small pertaters an' few in a hill."
+
+"Oh, Aunt Linda," said Robert, "don't call them niggers. They are our
+own people."
+
+"Dey ain't my kine ob people. I jis' calls em niggers, an' niggers I
+means; an' de bigges' kine ob niggers. An' if my John war sich a nigger
+I'd whip him an' leave him."
+
+"An' what would I be a doin'," queried John, suddenly rousing up at the
+mention of his name.
+
+"Standing still and taking it, I suppose," said Iola, who had been
+quietly listening to and enjoying the conversation.
+
+"Yes, an' I'd ketch myself stan'in' still an' takin' it," was John's
+plucky response.
+
+"Well, you oughter, ef you's mean enough to wote dat ticket ter put me
+back inter slavery," was Aunt Linda's parting shot. "Robby," she
+continued, "you 'member Miss Nancy's Jinnie?"
+
+"Of course I do," said Robert.
+
+"She married Mr. Gundover's Dick. Well, dere warn't much git up an' go
+'bout him. So, wen 'lection time com'd, de man he war workin' fer tole
+him ef he woted de radical ticket he'd turn him off. Well, Jinnie war so
+'fraid he'd do it, dat she jis' follered him fer days."
+
+"Poor fellow!" exclaimed Robert. "How did he come out?"
+
+"He certainly was between two fires," interposed Iola.
+
+"Oh, Jinnie gained de day. She jis' got her back up, and said, 'Now ef
+yer wote dat ticket ter put me back inter slavery, you take yore rags
+an' go.' An' Dick jis' woted de radical ticket. Jake Williams went on de
+Secesh side, woted whar he thought he'd git his taters, but he got
+fooled es slick es greese."
+
+"How was that?" asked Robert.
+
+"Some ob dem folks, dat I 'spects buyed his wote, sent him some flour
+an' sugar. So one night his wife hab company ter tea. Dey made a big
+spread, an' put a lot ob sugar on de table fer supper, an' Tom jis' went
+fer dat sugar. He put a lot in his tea. But somehow it didn't tase
+right, an' wen dey come ter fine out what war de matter, dey hab sent
+him a barrel ob san' wid some sugar on top, an' wen de sugar war all
+gone de san' war dare. Wen I yeard it, I jis' split my sides a larfin.
+It war too good to keep; an' wen it got roun', Jake war as mad as a
+March hare. But it sarved him right."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda, you musn't be too hard on Uncle Jake; you know he's
+getting old."
+
+"Well he ain't too ole ter do right. He ain't no older dan Uncle Dan'el.
+An' I yered dey offered him $500 ef he'd go on dere side. An' Uncle
+Dan'el wouldn't tech it. An' dere's Uncle Job's wife; why didn't she go
+dat way? She war down on Job's meanness."
+
+"What did she do?"
+
+"Wen 'lection time 'rived, he com'd home bringing some flour an' meat;
+an' he says ter Aunt Polly, 'Ole woman, I got dis fer de wote.' She jis'
+picked up dat meat an' flour an' sent it sailin' outer doors, an' den
+com'd back an' gib him a good tongue-lashin'. 'Oder people,' she said,
+'a wotin' ter lib good, an' you a sellin' yore wote! Ain't you got 'nuff
+ob ole Marster, an' ole Marster bin cuttin' you up? It shan't stay
+yere.' An' so she wouldn't let de things stay in de house."
+
+"What did Uncle Job do?"
+
+"He jis' stood dere an' cried."
+
+"And didn't you feel sorry for him?" asked Iola.
+
+"Not a bit! he hedn't no business ter be so shabby."
+
+"But, Aunt Linda," pursued Iola, "if it were shabby for an ignorant
+colored man to sell his vote, wasn't it shabbier for an intelligent
+white man to buy it?"
+
+"You see," added Robert, "all the shabbiness is not on our side."
+
+"I knows dat," said Aunt Linda, "but I can't help it. I wants my people
+to wote right, an' to think somethin' ob demselves."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda, they say in every flock of sheep there will be one
+that's scabby," observed Iola.
+
+"Dat's so! But I ain't got no use fer scabby sheep."
+
+"Lindy," cried John, "we's most dar! Don't you yere dat singin'? Dey's
+begun a'ready."
+
+"Neber mine," said Aunt Linda, "sometimes de las' ob de wine is de
+bes'."
+
+Thus discoursing they had beguiled the long hours of the night and made
+their long journey appear short.
+
+Very soon they reached the church, a neat, commodious, frame building,
+with a blue ceiling, white walls within and without, and large windows
+with mahogany-colored facings. It was a sight full of pathetic interest
+to see that group which gathered from miles around. They had come to
+break bread with each other, relate their experiences, and tell of their
+hopes of heaven. In that meeting were remnants of broken
+families--mothers who had been separated from their children before the
+war, husbands who had not met their wives for years. After the bread had
+been distributed and the handshaking was nearly over, Robert raised the
+hymn which Iola had sung for him when he was recovering from his wounds,
+and Iola, with her clear, sweet tones, caught up the words and joined
+him in the strain. When the hymn was finished a dear old mother rose
+from her seat. Her voice was quite strong. With still a lingering light
+and fire in her eye, she said:--
+
+"I rise, bredren an' sisters, to say I'm on my solemn march to glory."
+
+"Amen!" "Glory!" came from a number of voices.
+
+"I'se had my trials an' temptations, my ups an' downs; but I feels I'll
+soon be in one ob de many mansions. If it hadn't been for dat hope I
+'spects I would have broken down long ago. I'se bin through de deep
+waters, but dey didn't overflow me; I'se bin in de fire, but de smell ob
+it isn't on my garments. Bredren an' sisters, it war a drefful time when
+I war tored away from my pore little chillen."
+
+"Dat's so!" exclaimed a chorus of voices. Some of her hearers moaned,
+others rocked to and fro, as thoughts of similar scenes in their own
+lives arose before them.
+
+"When my little girl," continued the speaker, "took hole ob my dress an'
+begged me ter let her go wid me, an' I couldn't do it, it mos' broke my
+heart. I had a little boy, an' wen my mistus sole me she kep' him. She
+carried on a boardin' house. Many's the time I hab stole out at night
+an' seen dat chile an' sleep'd wid him in my arms tell mos' day. Bimeby
+de people I libed wid got hard up fer money, an' dey sole me one way an'
+my pore little gal de oder; an' I neber laid my eyes on my pore chillen
+sence den. But, honeys, let de wind blow high or low, I 'spects to
+outwedder de storm an' anchor by'm bye in bright glory. But I'se bin a
+prayin' fer one thing, an' I beliebs I'll git it; an' dat is dat I may
+see my chillen 'fore I die. Pray fer me dat I may hole out an' hole on,
+an' neber make a shipwrack ob faith, an' at las' fine my way from earth
+to glory."
+
+Having finished her speech, she sat down and wiped away the tears that
+flowed all the more copiously as she remembered her lost children. When
+she rose to speak her voice and manner instantly arrested Robert's
+attention. He found his mind reverting to the scenes of his childhood.
+As she proceeded his attention became riveted on her. Unbidden tears
+filled his eyes and great sobs shook his frame. He trembled in every
+limb. Could it be possible that after years of patient search through
+churches, papers, and inquiring friends, he had accidentally stumbled on
+his mother--the mother who, long years ago, had pillowed his head upon
+her bosom and left her parting kiss upon his lips? How should he reveal
+himself to her? Might not sudden joy do what years of sorrow had failed
+to accomplish? Controlling his feelings as best he could, he rose to
+tell his experience. He referred to the days when they used to hold
+their meetings in the lonely woods and gloomy swamps. How they had
+prayed for freedom and plotted to desert to the Union army; and
+continuing, he said: "Since then, brethren and sisters, I have had my
+crosses and trials, but I try to look at the mercies. Just think what it
+was then and what it is now! How many of us, since freedom has come,
+have been looking up our scattered relatives. I have just been over to
+visit my old mistress, Nancy Johnson, and to see if I could get some
+clue to my long-lost mother, who was sold from me nearly thirty years
+ago."
+
+Again there was a chorus of moans.
+
+On resuming, Robert's voice was still fuller of pathos.
+
+"When," he said, "I heard that dear old mother tell her experience it
+seemed as if some one had risen from the dead. She made me think of my
+own dear mother, who used to steal out at night to see me, fold me in
+her arms, and then steal back again to her work. After she was sold
+away I never saw her face again by daylight. I have been looking for her
+ever since the war, and I think at last I have got on the right track.
+If Mrs. Johnson, who kept the boarding-house in C----, is the one who
+sold that dear old mother from her son, then she is the one I am looking
+for, and I am the son she has been praying for."
+
+The dear old mother raised her eyes. They were clear and tearless. An
+expression of wonder, hope, and love flitted over her face. It seemed as
+if her youth were suddenly renewed and, bounding from her seat, she
+rushed to the speaker in a paroxysm of joy. "Oh, Robby! Robby! is dis
+you? Is dat my pore, dear boy I'se been prayin' 'bout all dese years?
+Oh, glory! glory!" And overflowing with joyous excitement she threw her
+arms around him, looking the very impersonation of rapturous content. It
+was a happy time. Mothers whose children had been torn from them in the
+days of slavery knew how to rejoice in her joy. The young people caught
+the infection of the general happiness and rejoiced with them that
+rejoiced. There were songs of rejoicing and shouts of praise. The
+undertone of sadness which had so often mingled with their songs gave
+place to strains of exultation; and tears of tender sympathy flowed from
+eyes which had often been blurred by anguish. The child of many prayers
+and tears was restored to his mother.
+
+Iola stood by the mother's side, smiling, and weeping tears of joy. When
+Robert's mother observed Iola, she said to Robert, "Is dis yore wife?"
+
+"Oh, no," replied Robert, "but I believe she is your grandchild, the
+daughter of the little girl who was sold away from you so long ago. She
+is on her way to the farther South in search of her mother."
+
+"Is she? Dear chile! I hope she'll fine her! She puts me in mine ob my
+pore little Marie. Well, I'se got one chile, an' I means to keep on
+prayin' tell I fine my daughter. I'm _so_ happy! I feel's like a new
+woman!"
+
+"My dear mother," said Robert, "now that I have found you, I mean to
+hold you fast just as long as you live. Ever since the war I have been
+trying to find out if you were living, but all efforts failed. At last,
+I thought I would come and hunt you myself and, now that I have found
+you, I am going to take you home to live with me, and to be as happy as
+the days are long. I am living in the North, and doing a good business
+there. I want you to see joy according to all the days wherein you have
+seen sorrow. I do hope this young lady will find _her_ ma and that, when
+found, she will prove to be your daughter!"
+
+"Yes, pore, dear chile! I specs her mudder's heart's mighty hungry fer
+her. I does hope she's my gran'chile."
+
+Tenderly and caressingly Iola bent over the happy mother, with her heart
+filled with mournful memories of her own mother.
+
+Aunt Linda was induced to stay until the next morning, and then gladly
+assisted Robert's mother in arranging for her journey northward. The
+friends who had given her a shelter in their hospitable home, learned to
+value her so much that it was with great reluctance they resigned her to
+the care of her son. Aunt Linda was full of bustling activity, and her
+spirits overflowed with good humor.
+
+"Now, Harriet," she said, as they rode along on their return journey,
+"you mus' jis' thank me fer finin' yore chile, 'cause I got him to come
+to dat big meetin' wid me."
+
+"Oh, Lindy," she cried, "I'se glad from de bottom ob my heart ter see
+you's all. I com'd out dere ter git a blessin', an' I'se got a double
+po'tion. De frens I war libin' wid war mighty good ter me. Dey lib'd wid
+me in de lower kentry, an' arter de war war ober I stopped wid 'em and
+helped take keer ob de chillen; an' when dey com'd up yere dey brought
+me wid 'em. I'se com'd a way I didn't know, but I'se mighty glad I'se
+com'd."
+
+"Does you know dis place?" asked Aunt Linda, as they approached the
+settlement.
+
+"No'n 'deed I don't. It's all new ter me."
+
+"Well, dis is whar I libs. Ain't you mighty tired? I feels a little
+stiffish. Dese bones is gittin' ole."
+
+"Dat's so! But I'se mighty glad I'se lib'd to see my boy 'fore I crossed
+ober de riber. An' now I feel like ole Simeon."
+
+"But, mother," said Robert, "if you are ready to go, I am not willing to
+let you. I want you to stay ever so long where I can see you."
+
+A bright smile overspread her face. Robert's words reassured and
+gladdened her heart. She was well satisfied to have a pleasant aftermath
+from life on this side of the river.
+
+After arriving home Linda's first thought was to prepare dinner for her
+guests. But, before she began her work of preparation, she went to the
+cupboard to get a cup of home-made wine.
+
+"Here," she said, filling three glasses, "is some wine I made myself
+from dat grape-vine out dere. Don't it look nice and clar? Jist taste
+it. It's fus'rate."
+
+"No, thank you," said Robert. "I'm a temperance man, and never take
+anything which has alcohol in it."
+
+"Oh, dis ain't got a bit ob alcohol in it. I made it myself."
+
+"But, Aunt Linda, you didn't make the law which ferments grape-juice and
+makes it alcohol."
+
+"But, Robby, ef alcohol's so bad, w'at made de Lord put it here?"
+
+"Aunt Lindy," said Iola, "I heard a lady say that there were two things
+the Lord didn't make. One is sin, and the other alcohol."
+
+"Why, Aunt Linda," said Robert, "there are numbers of things the Lord
+has made that I wouldn't touch with a pair of tongs."
+
+"What are they?"
+
+"Rattlesnakes, scorpions, and moccasins."
+
+"Oh, sho!"
+
+"Aunt Linda," said Iola, "the Bible says that the wine at last will bite
+like a serpent and sting like an adder."
+
+"And, Aunt Linda," added Robert, "as I wouldn't wind a serpent around my
+throat, I don't want to put something inside of it which will bite like
+a serpent and sting as an adder."
+
+"I reckon Robby's right," said his mother, setting down her glass and
+leaving the wine unfinished. "You young folks knows a heap more dan we
+ole folks." "Well," declared Aunt Linda, "you all is temp'rence to de
+backbone. But what could I do wid my wine ef we didn't drink it?"
+
+"Let it turn to vinegar, and sign the temperance pledge," replied
+Robert.
+
+"I don't keer 'bout it myself, but I don't 'spect John would be willin'
+ter let it go, 'cause he likes it a heap."
+
+"Then you must give it up for his sake and Job's," said Robert. "They
+may learn to like it too well."
+
+"You know, Aunt Linda," said Iola, "people don't get to be drunkards all
+at once. And you wouldn't like to feel, if Job should learn to drink,
+that you helped form his appetite."
+
+"Dat' so! I beliebs I'll let dis turn to winegar, an' not make any
+more."
+
+"That's right, Aunt Linda. I hope you'll hold to it," said Robert,
+encouragingly.
+
+Very soon Aunt Linda had an excellent dinner prepared. After it was over
+Robert went with Iola to C----, where her friend, the bishop, was
+awaiting her return. She told him the wonderful story of Robert's
+finding his mother, and of her sweet, childlike faith.
+
+The bishop, a kind, fatherly man, said, "Miss Iola, I hope that such
+happiness is in store for you. My dear child, still continue to pray and
+trust. I am old-fashioned enough to believe in prayer. I knew an old
+lady living in Illinois, who was a slave. Her son got a chance to come
+North and beg money to buy his mother. The mother was badly treated, and
+made up her mind to run away. But before she started she thought she
+would kneel down to pray. And something, she said, reasoned within her,
+and whispered, 'Stand still and see what I am going to do for you.' So
+real was it to her that she unpacked her bundle and desisted from her
+flight. Strange as it may appear to you, her son returned, bringing
+with him money enough to purchase her freedom, and she was redeemed from
+bondage. Had she persisted in running away she might have been lost in
+the woods and have died, exhausted by starvation. But she believed, she
+trusted, and was delivered. Her son took her North, where she could find
+a resting place for the soles of her feet."
+
+That night Iola and the bishop left for the South.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXI.
+
+
+A HOME FOR MOTHER.
+
+After Iola had left the settlement, accompanied by Robert as far as the
+town, it was a pleasant satisfaction for the two old friends to settle
+themselves down, and talk of times past, departed friends, and
+long-forgotten scenes.
+
+"What," said Mrs. Johnson, as we shall call Robert's mother, "hab become
+ob Miss Nancy's husband? Is he still a libin'?"
+
+"Oh, he drunk hisself to death," responded Aunt Linda.
+
+"He used ter be mighty handsome."
+
+"Yes, but drink war his ruination."
+
+"An' how's Miss Nancy?"
+
+"Oh, she's com'd down migh'ly. She's pore as a church mouse. I thought
+'twould com'd home ter her wen she sole yer 'way from yore chillen.
+Dere's nuffin goes ober de debil's back dat don't come under his belly.
+Do yo 'member Miss Nancy's fardder?"
+
+"Ob course I does!"
+
+"Well," said Aunt Linda, "he war a nice ole gemmen. Wen he died, I said
+de las' gemmen's dead, an' dere's noboddy ter step in his shoes."
+
+"Pore Miss Nancy!" exclaimed Robert's mother. "I ain't nothin' agin her.
+But I wouldn't swap places wid her, 'cause I'se got my son; an' I
+beliebs he'll do a good part by me."
+
+"Mother," said Robert, as he entered the room, "I've brought an old
+friend to see you. Do you remember Uncle Daniel?"
+
+Uncle Daniel threw back his head, reached out his hand, and manifested
+his joy with "Well, Har'yet! is dis you? I neber 'spected to see you in
+dese lower grouns! How does yer do? an' whar hab you bin all dis time?"
+
+"O, I'se been tossin' roun' 'bout; but it's all com'd right at las'.
+I'se lib'd to see my boy 'fore I died."
+
+"My wife an' boys is in glory," said Uncle Daniel. "But I 'spects to see
+'em 'fore long. 'Cause I'se tryin' to dig deep, build sure, an' make my
+way from earth ter glory."
+
+"Dat's de right kine ob talk, Dan'el. We ole folks ain't got long ter
+stay yere."
+
+They chatted together until Job and Salters came home for supper. After
+they had eaten, Uncle Daniel said:--
+
+"We'll hab a word ob prayer."
+
+There, in that peaceful habitation, they knelt down, and mingled their
+prayers together, as they had done in by-gone days, when they had met by
+stealth in lonely swamps or silent forests.
+
+The next morning Robert and his mother started northward. They were well
+supplied with a bountiful luncheon by Aunt Linda, who had so thoroughly
+enjoyed their sojourn with her. On the next day he arrived in the city
+of P----, and took his mother to his boarding-house, until he could find
+a suitable home into which to install her. He soon came across one which
+just suited his taste, but when the agent discovered that Robert's
+mother was colored, he told him that the house had been previously
+engaged. In company with his mother he looked at several other houses in
+desirable neighborhoods, but they were constantly met with the answer,
+"The house is engaged," or, "We do not rent to colored people."
+
+At length Robert went alone, and, finding a desirable house, engaged it,
+and moved into it. In a short time it was discovered that he was
+colored, and, at the behest of the local sentiment of the place, the
+landlord used his utmost endeavors to oust him, simply because he
+belonged to an unfashionable and unpopular race. At last he came across
+a landlord who was broad enough to rent him a good house, and he found a
+quiet resting place among a set of well-to-do and well-disposed people.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXII.
+
+
+FURTHER LIFTING OF THE VEIL.
+
+In one of those fearful conflicts by which the Mississippi was freed
+from Rebel intrusion and opened to commerce Harry was severely wounded,
+and forced to leave his place in the ranks for a bed in the hospital.
+
+One day, as he lay in his bed, thinking of his former home in
+Mississippi and wondering if the chances of war would ever restore him
+to his loved ones, he fell into a quiet slumber. When he awoke he found
+a lady bending over him, holding in her hands some fruit and flowers. As
+she tenderly bent over Harry's bed their eyes met, and with a thrill of
+gladness they recognized each other.
+
+"Oh, my son, my son!" cried Marie, trying to repress her emotion, as she
+took his wasted hand in hers, and kissed the pale cheeks that sickness
+and suffering had blanched. Harry was very weak, but her presence was a
+call to life. He returned the pressure of her hand, kissed it, and his
+eyes grew full of sudden light, as he murmured faintly, but joyfully:--
+
+"Mamma; oh, mamma! have I found you at last?"
+
+The effort was too much, and he immediately became unconscious.
+
+Anxious, yet hopeful, Marie sat by the bedside of her son till
+consciousness was restored. Caressingly she bent over his couch,
+murmuring in her happiness the tenderest, sweetest words of motherly
+love. In Harry's veins flowed new life and vigor, calming the
+restlessness of his nerves.
+
+As soon as possible Harry was carried to his mother's home; a home
+brought into the light of freedom by the victories of General Grant.
+Nursed by his mother's tender, loving care, he rapidly recovered, but,
+being too disabled to re-enter the army, he was honorably discharged.
+
+Lorraine had taken Marie to Vicksburg, and there allowed her to engage
+in confectionery and preserving for the wealthy ladies of the city. He
+had at first attempted to refugee with her in Texas, but, being foiled
+in the attempt, he was compelled to enlist in the Confederate Army, and
+met his fate by being killed just before the surrender of Vicksburg.
+
+"My dear son," Marie would say, as she bent fondly over him, "I am
+deeply sorry that you are wounded, but I am glad that the fortunes of
+war have brought us together. Poor Iola! I _do_ wonder what has become
+of her? Just as soon as this war is over I want you to search the
+country all over. Poor child! How my heart has ached for her!"
+
+Time passed on. Harry and his mother searched and inquired for Iola, but
+no tidings of her reached them.
+
+Having fully recovered his health, and seeing the great need of
+education for the colored people, Harry turned his attention toward
+them, and joined the new army of Northern teachers.
+
+He still continued his inquiries for his sister, not knowing whether or
+not she had succumbed to the cruel change in her life. He thought she
+might have passed into the white basis for the sake of bettering her
+fortunes. Hope deferred, which had sickened his mother's heart, had
+only roused him to renewed diligence.
+
+A school was offered him in Georgia, and thither he repaired, taking his
+mother with him. They were soon established in the city of A----. In
+hope of finding Iola he visited all the conferences of the Methodist
+Church, but for a long time his search was in vain.
+
+"Mamma," said Harry, one day during his vacation, "there is to be a
+Methodist Conference in this State in the city of S----, about one
+hundred and fifty miles from here. I intend to go and renew my search
+for Iola."
+
+"Poor child!" burst out Marie, as the tears gathered in her eyes, "I
+wonder if she is living."
+
+"I think so," said Harry, kissing the pale cheek of his mother; "I don't
+feel that Iola is dead. I believe we will find her before long."
+
+"It seems to me my heart would burst with joy to see my dear child just
+once more. I am glad that you are going. When will you leave?"
+
+"To-morrow morning."
+
+"Well, my son, go, and my prayers will go with you," was Marie's tender
+parting wish.
+
+Early next morning Harry started for the conference, and reached the
+church before the morning session was over. Near him sat two ladies, one
+fair, the other considerably darker. There was something in the fairer
+one that reminded him forcibly of his sister, but she was much older and
+graver than he imagined his sister to be. Instantly he dismissed the
+thought that had forced itself into his mind, and began to listen
+attentively to the proceedings of the conference.
+
+When the regular business of the morning session was over the bishop
+arose and said:--
+
+"I have an interesting duty to perform. I wish to introduce a young lady
+to the conference, who was the daughter of a Mississippi planter. She is
+now in search of her mother and brother, from whom she was sold a few
+months before the war. Her father married her mother in Ohio, where he
+had taken her to be educated. After his death they were robbed of their
+inheritance and enslaved by a distant relative named Lorraine. Miss Iola
+Leroy is the young lady's name. If any one can give the least
+information respecting the objects of her search it will be thankfully
+received."
+
+"I can," exclaimed a young man, rising in the midst of the audience, and
+pressing eagerly, almost impetuously, forward. "I am her brother, and I
+came here to look for her."
+
+Iola raised her eyes to his face, so flushed and bright with the glow of
+recognition, rushed to him, threw her arms around his neck, kissed him
+again and again, crying: "O, Harry!" Then she fainted from excitement.
+The women gathered around her with expressions of tender sympathy, and
+gave her all the care she needed. They called her the "dear child," for
+without any effort on her part she had slidden into their hearts and
+found a ready welcome in each sympathizing bosom.
+
+Harry at once telegraphed the glad tidings to his mother, who waited
+their coming with joyful anticipation. Long before the cars reached the
+city, Mrs. Leroy was at the depot, restlessly walking the platform or
+eagerly peering into the darkness to catch the first glimpse of the
+train which was bearing her treasures.
+
+At length the cars arrived, and, as Harry and Iola alighted, Marie
+rushed forward, clasped Iola in her arms and sobbed out her joy in
+broken words.
+
+Very happy was the little family that sat together around the
+supper-table for the first time for years. They partook of that supper
+with thankful hearts and with eyes overflowing with tears of joy. Very
+touching were the prayers the mother uttered, when she knelt with her
+children that night to return thanks for their happy reunion, and to
+seek protection through the slumbers of the night.
+
+The next morning, as they sat at the breakfast-table, Marie said:
+
+"My dear child, you are so changed I do not think I would have known you
+if I had met you in the street!"
+
+"And I," said Harry, "can hardly realize that you are our own Iola, whom
+I recognized as sister a half dozen years ago."
+
+"Am I so changed?" asked Iola, as a faint sigh escaped her lips.
+
+"Why, Iola," said Harry, "you used to be the most harum-scarum girl I
+ever knew, laughing, dancing, and singing from morning until night."
+
+"Yes, I remember," said Iola. "It all comes back to me like a dream. Oh,
+mamma! I have passed through a fiery ordeal of suffering since then. But
+it is useless," and as she continued her face assumed a brighter look,
+"to brood over the past. Let us be happy in the present. Let me tell you
+something which will please you. Do you remember telling me about your
+mother and brother?"
+
+"Yes," said Marie, in a questioning tone."
+
+"Well," continued Iola, with eyes full of gladness, "I think I have
+found them."
+
+"Can it be possible!" exclaimed Marie, in astonishment. "It is more than
+thirty years since we parted. I fear you are mistaken."
+
+"No, mamma; I have drawn my conclusions from good circumstantial
+evidence. After I was taken from you, I passed through a fearful siege
+of suffering, which would only harrow up your soul to hear. I often
+shudder at the remembrance. The last man in whose clutches I found
+myself was mean, brutal, and cruel. I was in his power when the Union
+army came into C----, where I was living. A number of colored men
+stampeded to the Union ranks, with a gentleman as a leader, whom I think
+is your brother. A friend of his reported my case to the commander of
+the post, who instantly gave orders for my release. A place was given me
+as nurse in the hospital. I attended that friend in his last illness.
+Poor fellow! he was the best friend I had in all the time I have been
+tossing about. The gentleman whom I think is your brother appeared to be
+very anxious about his friend's recovery, and was deeply affected by his
+death. In one of the last terrible battles of the war, that of Five
+Forks, he was wounded and put into the hospital ward where I was an
+attendant. For awhile he was delirious, and in his delirium he would
+sometimes think that I was his mother and at other times his sister. I
+humored his fancies, would often sing to him when he was restless, and
+my voice almost invariably soothed him to sleep. One day I sang to him
+that old hymn we used to sing on the plantation:--
+
+    "Drooping souls no longer grieve,
+          Heaven is propitious;
+     If on Christ you do believe,
+          You will find Him precious."
+
+"I remember," said Marie, with a sigh, as memories of the past swept
+over her.
+
+"After I had finished the hymn," continued Iola, "he looked earnestly
+and inquiringly into my face, and asked, 'Where did you learn that hymn?
+I have heard my mother sing it when I was a boy, but I have never heard
+it since.' I think, mamma, the words, 'I was lost but now I'm found;
+glory! glory! glory!' had imprinted themselves on his memory, and that
+his mind was assuming a higher state of intellectuality. He asked me to
+sing it again, which I did, until he fell asleep. Then I noticed a
+marked resemblance between him and Harry, and I thought, 'Suppose he
+should prove to be your long-lost brother?' During his convalescence we
+found that we had a common ground of sympathy. We were anxious to be
+reunited to our severed relations. We had both been separated from our
+mothers. He told me of his little sister, with whom he used to play. She
+had a mole on her cheek which he called her beauty spot. He had the red
+spot on his forehead which you told me of."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIII.
+
+
+DELIGHTFUL REUNIONS.
+
+Very bright and happy was the home where Marie and her children were
+gathered under one roof. Mrs. Leroy's neighbors said she looked ten
+years younger. Into that peaceful home came no fearful forebodings of
+cruel separations. Harry and Iola were passionately devoted to their
+mother, and did all they could to flood her life with sunshine.
+
+"Iola, dear," said Harry, one morning at the breakfast-table, "I have a
+new pleasure in store for you."
+
+"What is it, brother mine?" asked Iola, assuming an air of interest.
+
+"There is a young lady living in this city to whom I wish to introduce
+you. She is one of the most remarkable women I have ever met."
+
+"Do tell me all about her," said Iola. "Is she young and handsome,
+brilliant and witty?
+
+"She," replied Harry, "is more than handsome, she is lovely; more than
+witty, she is wise; more than brilliant, she is excellent."
+
+"Well, Harry," said Mrs. Leroy, smiling, "if you keep on that way I
+shall begin to fear that I shall soon be supplanted by a new daughter."
+
+"Oh, no, mamma," replied Harry, looking slightly confused, "I did not
+mean that."
+
+"Well, Harry," said Iola, amused, "go on with your description; I am
+becoming interested. Tax your powers of description to give me her
+likeness."
+
+"Well, in the first place," continued Harry, "I suppose she is about
+twenty-five years old."
+
+"Oh, the idea," interrupted Iola, "of a gentleman talking of a lady's
+age. That is a tabooed subject."
+
+"Why, Iola, that adds to the interest of my picture. It is her
+combination of earnestness and youthfulness which enhances her in my
+estimation."
+
+"Pardon the interruption," said Iola; "I am anxious to hear more about
+her."
+
+"Well, she is of medium height, somewhat slender, and well formed, with
+dark, expressive eyes, full of thought and feeling. Neither hair nor
+complexion show the least hint of blood admixture."
+
+"I am glad of it," said Iola. "Every person of unmixed blood who
+succeeds in any department of literature, art, or science is a living
+argument for the capability which is in the race."
+
+"Yes," responded Harry, "for it is not the white blood which is on trial
+before the world. Well, I will bring her around this evening."
+
+In the evening Harry brought Miss Delany to call on his sister and
+mother. They were much pleased with their visitor. Her manner was a
+combination of suavity and dignity. During the course of the evening
+they learned that she was a graduate of the University of A----. One day
+she saw in the newspapers that colored women were becoming unfit to be
+servants for white people. She then thought that if they are not fit to
+be servants for white people, they are unfit to be mothers to their own
+children, and she conceived the idea of opening a school to train future
+wives and mothers. She began on a small scale, in a humble building,
+and her work was soon crowned with gratifying success. She had enlarged
+her quarters, increased her teaching force, and had erected a large and
+commodious school-house through her own exertions and the help of
+others.
+
+Marie cordially invited her to call again, saying, as she rose to go: "I
+am very glad to have met you. Young women like you always fill my heart
+with hope for the future of our race. In you I see reflected some of the
+blessed possibilities which lie within us."
+
+"Thank you," said Miss Delany, "I want to be classed among those of whom
+it is said, 'She has done what she could.'"
+
+Very pleasant was the acquaintance which sprang up between Miss Delany
+and Iola. Although she was older than Iola, their tastes were so
+congenial, their views of life and duty in such unison, that their
+acquaintance soon ripened into strong and lasting friendship. There were
+no foolish rivalries and jealousies between them. Their lives were too
+full of zeal and earnestness for them to waste in selfishness their
+power to be moral and spiritual forces among a people who so much needed
+their helping hands. Miss Delany gave Iola a situation in her school;
+but before the term was quite over she was force to resign, her health
+having been so undermined by the fearful strain through which she had
+passed, that she was quite unequal to the task. She remained at home,
+and did what her strength would allow in assisting her mother in the
+work of canning and preserving fruits.
+
+In the meantime, Iola had been corresponding with Robert. She had told
+him of her success in finding her mother and brother, and had received
+an answer congratulating her on the glad fruition of her hopes. He also
+said that his business was flourishing, that his mother was keeping
+house for him, and, to use her own expression, was as happy as the days
+are long. She was firmly persuaded that Marie was her daughter, and she
+wanted to see her before she died.
+
+"There is one thing," continued the letter, "that your mother may
+remember her by. It was a little handkerchief on which were a number of
+cats' heads. She gave one to each of us."
+
+"I remember it well," said Marie, "she must, indeed, be my mother. Now,
+all that is needed to complete my happiness is her presence, and my
+brother's. And I intend, if I live long enough, to see them both."
+
+Iola wrote Robert that her mother remembered the incident of the
+handkerchief, and was anxious to see them.
+
+In the early fall Robert started for the South in order to clear up all
+doubts with respect to their relationship. He found Iola, Harry, and
+their mother living cosily together. Harry was teaching and was a leader
+among the rising young men of the State. His Northern education and
+later experience had done much toward adapting him to the work of the
+new era which had dawned upon the South.
+
+Marie was very glad to welcome Robert to her home, but it was almost
+impossible to recognize her brother in that tall, handsome man, with
+dark-brown eyes and wealth of chestnut-colored hair, which he readily
+lifted to show the crimson spot which lay beneath it.
+
+But as they sat together, and recalled the long-forgotten scenes of
+their childhood, they concluded that they were brother and sister.
+
+"Marie," said Robert, "how would you like to leave the South?"
+
+"I should like to go North, but I hate to leave Harry. He's a splendid
+young fellow, although I say it myself. He is so fearless and outspoken
+that I am constantly anxious about him, especially at election time."
+
+Harry then entered the room, and, being introduced to Robert, gave him a
+cordial welcome. He had just returned from school.
+
+"We were talking of you, my son," said Marie.
+
+"What were you saying? Nothing of the absent but good?" asked Harry.
+
+"I was telling your uncle, who wants me to come North, that I would go,
+but I am afraid that you will get into trouble and be murdered, as many
+others have been."
+
+"Oh, well, mother, I shall not die till my time comes. And if I die
+helping the poor and needy, I shall die at my post. Could a man choose a
+better place to die?"
+
+"Were you aware of the virulence of caste prejudice and the disabilities
+which surround the colored people when you cast your lot with them?"
+asked Robert.
+
+"Not fully," replied Harry; "but after I found out that I was colored, I
+consulted the principal of the school, where I was studying, in
+reference to the future. He said that if I stayed in the North, he had
+friends whom he believed would give me any situation I could fill, and I
+could simply take my place in the rank of workers, the same as any other
+man. Then he told me of the army, and I made up my mind to enter it,
+actuated by a desire to find my mother and sister; and at any rate I
+wanted to avenge their wrongs. I do not feel so now. Since I have seen
+the fearful ravages of war, I have learned to pity and forgive. The
+principal said he thought I would be more apt to find my family if I
+joined a colored regiment in the West than if I joined one of the Maine
+companies. I confess at first I felt a shrinking from taking the step,
+but love for my mother overcame all repugnance on my part. Now that I
+have linked my fortunes to the race I intend to do all I can for its
+elevation."
+
+As he spoke Robert gazed admiringly on the young face, lit up by noble
+purposes and lofty enthusiasm.
+
+"You are right, Harry. I think it would be treason, not only to the
+race, but to humanity, to have you ignoring your kindred and
+masquerading as a white man."
+
+"I think so, too," said Marie.
+
+"But, sister, I am anxious for you all to come North. If Harry feels
+that the place of danger is the post of duty, let him stay, and he can
+spend his vacations with us. I think both you and Iola need rest and
+change. Mother longs to see you before she dies. She feels that we have
+been the children of many prayers and tears, and I want to make her last
+days as happy as possible. The South has not been a paradise to you all
+the time, and I should think you would be willing to leave it."
+
+"Yes, that is so. Iola needs rest and change, and she would be such a
+comfort to mother. I suppose, for her sake, I will consent to have her
+go back with you, at least for awhile."
+
+In a few days, with many prayers and tears, Marie, half reluctantly,
+permitted Iola to start for the North in company with Robert Johnson,
+intending to follow as soon as she could settle her business and see
+Harry in a good boarding place.
+
+Very joyful was the greeting of the dear grandmother. Iola soon nestled
+in her heart and lent additional sunshine to her once checkered life,
+and Robert, who had so long been robbed of kith and kin, was delighted
+with the new accession to his home life.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIV.
+
+
+NORTHERN EXPERIENCE.
+
+"Uncle Robert," said Iola, after she had been North several weeks, "I
+have a theory that every woman ought to know how to earn her own living.
+I believe that a great amount of sin and misery springs from the
+weakness and inefficiency of women."
+
+"Perhaps that's so, but what are you going to do about it?"
+
+"I am going to join the great rank of bread-winners. Mr. Waterman has
+advertised for a number of saleswomen, and I intend to make
+application."
+
+"When he advertises for help he means white women," said Robert.
+
+"He said nothing about color," responded Iola.
+
+"I don't suppose he did. He doesn't expect any colored girl to apply."
+
+"Well, I think I could fill the place. At least I should like to try.
+And I do not think when I apply that I am in duty bound to tell him my
+great-grandmother was a negro."
+
+"Well, child, there is no necessity for you to go out to work. You are
+perfectly welcome here, and I hope that you feel so."
+
+"Oh, I certainly do. But still I would rather earn my own living."
+
+That morning Iola applied for the situation, and, being prepossessing in
+her appearance, she obtained it.
+
+For awhile everything went as pleasantly as a marriage bell. But one day
+a young colored lady, well-dressed and well-bred in her manner, entered
+the store. It was an acquaintance which Iola had formed in the colored
+church which she attended. Iola gave her a few words of cordial
+greeting, and spent a few moments chatting with her. The attention of
+the girls who sold at the same counter was attracted, and their
+suspicion awakened. Iola was a stranger in that city. Who was she, and
+who were her people? At last it was decided that one of the girls should
+act as a spy, and bring what information she could concerning Iola.
+
+The spy was successful. She found out that Iola was living in a good
+neighborhood, but that none of the neighbors knew her. The man of the
+house was very fair, but there was an old woman whom Iola called
+"Grandma," and she was unmistakably colored. The story was sufficient.
+If that were true, Iola must be colored, and she should be treated
+accordingly.
+
+Without knowing the cause, Iola noticed a chill in the social atmosphere
+of the store, which communicated itself to the cash-boys, and they
+treated her so insolently that her situation became very uncomfortable.
+She saw the proprietor, resigned her position, and asked for and
+obtained a letter of recommendation to another merchant who had
+advertised for a saleswoman.
+
+In applying for the place, she took the precaution to inform her
+employer that she was colored. It made no difference to him; but he
+said:--
+
+"Don't say anything about it to the girls. They might not be willing to
+work with you."
+
+Iola smiled, did not promise, and accepted the situation. She entered
+upon her duties, and proved quite acceptable as a saleswoman.
+
+One day, during an interval in business, the girls began to talk of
+their respective churches, and the question was put to Iola:--
+
+"Where do you go to church?"
+
+"I go," she replied, "to Rev. River's church, corner of Eighth and L
+Streets."
+
+"Oh, no; you must be mistaken. There is no church there except a colored
+one."
+
+"That is where I go."
+
+"Why do you go there?"
+
+"Because I liked it when I came here, and joined it."
+
+"A member of a colored church? What under heaven possessed you to do
+such a thing?"
+
+"Because I wished to be with my own people."
+
+Here the interrogator stopped, and looked surprised and pained, and
+almost instinctively moved a little farther from her. After the store
+was closed, the girls had an animated discussion, which resulted in the
+information being sent to Mr. Cohen that Iola was a colored girl, and
+that they protested against her being continued in his employ. Mr. Cohen
+yielded to the pressure, and informed Iola that her services were no
+longer needed.
+
+When Robert came home in the evening, he found that Iola had lost her
+situation, and was looking somewhat discouraged.
+
+"Well, uncle," she said, "I feel out of heart. It seems as if the
+prejudice pursues us through every avenue of life, and assigns us the
+lowest places."
+
+"That is so," replied Robert, thoughtfully.
+
+"And yet I am determined," said Iola, "to win for myself a place in the
+fields of labor. I have heard of a place in New England, and I mean to
+try for it, even if I only stay a few months."
+
+"Well, if you _will_ go, say nothing about your color."
+
+"Uncle Robert, I see no necessity for proclaiming that fact on the
+house-top. Yet I am resolved that nothing shall tempt me to deny it. The
+best blood in my veins is African blood, and I am not ashamed of it."
+
+"Hurrah for you!" exclaimed Robert, laughing heartily.
+
+As Iola wished to try the world for herself, and so be prepared for any
+emergency, her uncle and grandmother were content to have her go to New
+England. The town to which she journeyed was only a few hours' ride from
+the city of P----, and Robert, knowing that there is no teacher like
+experience, was willing that Iola should have the benefit of her
+teaching.
+
+Iola, on arriving in H----, sought the firm, and was informed that her
+services were needed. She found it a pleasant and lucrative position.
+There was only one drawback--her boarding place was too far from her
+work. There was an institution conducted by professed Christian women,
+which was for the special use of respectable young working girls. This
+was in such a desirable location that she called at the house to engage
+board.
+
+The matron conducted her over the house, and grew so friendly in the
+interview that she put her arm around her, and seemed to look upon Iola
+as a desirable accession to the home. But, just as Iola was leaving, she
+said to the matron: "I must be honest with you; I am a colored woman."
+
+Swift as light a change passed over the face of the matron. She withdrew
+her arm from Iola, and said: "I must see the board of managers about
+it."
+
+When the board met, Iola's case was put before them, but they decided
+not to receive her. And these women, professors of a religion which
+taught, "If ye have respect to persons ye commit sin," virtually shut
+the door in her face because of the outcast blood in her veins.
+
+Considerable feeling was aroused by the action of these women, who, to
+say the least, had not put their religion in the most favorable light.
+
+Iola continued to work for the firm until she received letters from her
+mother and uncle, which informed her that her mother, having arranged
+her affairs in the South, was ready to come North. She then resolved to
+return, to the city of P----, to be ready to welcome her mother on her
+arrival.
+
+Iola arrived in time to see that everything was in order for her
+mother's reception. Her room was furnished neatly, but with those
+touches of beauty that womanly hands are such adepts in giving. A few
+charming pictures adorned the walls, and an easy chair stood waiting to
+receive the travel-worn mother. Robert and Iola met her at the depot;
+and grandma was on her feet at the first sound of the bell, opened the
+door, clasped Marie to her heart, and nearly fainted for joy.
+
+"Can it be possible dat dis is my little Marie?" she exclaimed.
+
+It did seem almost impossible to realize that this faded woman, with
+pale cheeks and prematurely whitened hair, was the rosy-cheeked child
+from whom she had been parted more than thirty years.
+
+"Well," said Robert, after the first joyous greeting was over, "love is
+a very good thing, but Marie has had a long journey and needs something
+that will stick by the ribs. How about dinner, mother?"
+
+"It's all ready," said Mrs. Johnson.
+
+After Marie had gone to her room and changed her dress, she came down
+and partook of the delicious repast which her mother and Iola had
+prepared for her.
+
+In a few days Marie was settled in the home, and was well pleased with
+the change. The only drawback to her happiness was the absence of her
+son, and she expected him to come North after the closing of his school.
+
+"Uncle Robert," said Iola, after her mother had been with them several
+weeks, "I am tired of being idle."
+
+"What's the matter now?" asked Robert. "You are surely not going East
+again, and leave your mother?"
+
+"Oh, I hope not," said Marie, anxiously. "I have been so long without
+you."
+
+"No, mamma, I am not going East. I can get suitable employment here in
+the city of P----."
+
+"But, Iola," said Robert, "you have tried, and been defeated. Why
+subject yourself to the same experience again?"
+
+"Uncle Robert, I think that every woman should have some skill or art
+which would insure her at least a comfortable support. I believe there
+would be less unhappy marriages if labor were more honored among women."
+
+"Well, Iola," said her mother, "what is your skill?"
+
+"Nursing. I was very young when I went into the hospital, but I
+succeeded so well that the doctor said I must have been a born nurse.
+Now, I see by the papers, that a gentleman who has an invalid daughter
+wants some one who can be a nurse and companion for her, and I mean to
+apply for the situation. I do not think, if I do my part well in that
+position, that the blood in my veins will be any bar to my success."
+
+A troubled look stole over Marie's face. She sighed faintly, but made no
+remonstrance. And so it was decided that Iola should apply for the
+situation.
+
+Iola made application, and was readily accepted. Her patient was a frail
+girl of fifteen summers, who was ill with a low fever. Iola nursed her
+carefully, and soon had the satisfaction of seeing her restored to
+health. During her stay, Mr. Cloten, the father of the invalid, had
+learned some of the particulars of Iola's Northern experience as a
+bread-winner, and he resolved to give her employment in his store when
+her services were no longer needed in the house. As soon as a vacancy
+occurred he gave Iola a place in his store.
+
+The morning she entered on her work he called his employes together, and
+told them that Miss Iola had colored blood in her veins, but that he was
+going to employ her and give her a desk. If any one objected to working
+with her, he or she could step to the cashier's desk and receive what
+was due. Not a man remonstrated, not a woman demurred; and Iola at last
+found a place in the great army of bread-winners, which the traditions
+of her blood could not affect.
+
+"How did you succeed?" asked Mrs. Cloten of her husband, when he
+returned to dinner.
+
+"Admirably! 'Everything is lovely and the goose hangs high.' I gave my
+employes to understand that they could leave if they did not wish to
+work with Miss Leroy. Not one of them left, or showed any disposition
+to rebel."
+
+"I am very glad," said Mrs. Cloten. "I am ashamed of the way she has been
+treated in our city, when seeking to do her share in the world's work. I
+am glad that you were brave enough to face this cruel prejudice, and
+give her a situation."
+
+"Well, my dear, do not make me a hero for a single act. I am grateful
+for the care Miss Leroy gave our Daisy. Money can buy services, but it
+cannot purchase tender, loving sympathy. I was also determined to let my
+employes know that I, not they, commanded my business. So, do not crown
+me a hero until I have won a niche in the temple of fame. In dealing
+with Southern prejudice against the negro, we Northerners could do it
+with better grace if we divested ourselves of our own. We irritate the
+South by our criticisms, and, while I confess that there is much that is
+reprehensible in their treatment of colored people, yet if our Northern
+civilization is higher than theirs we should 'criticise by creation.' We
+should stamp ourselves on the South, and not let the South stamp itself
+on us. When we have learned to treat men according to the complexion of
+their souls, and not the color of their skins, we will have given our
+best contribution towards the solution of the negro problem."
+
+"I feel, my dear," said Mrs. Cloten, "that what you have done is a right
+step in the right direction, and I hope that other merchants will do the
+same. We have numbers of business men, rich enough to afford themselves
+the luxury of a good conscience."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXV.
+
+
+AN OLD FRIEND.
+
+"Good-morning, Miss Leroy," said a cheery voice in tones of glad
+surprise, and, intercepting her path, Dr. Gresham stood before Iola,
+smiling, and reaching out his hand.
+
+"Why, Dr. Gresham, is this you?" said Iola, lifting her eyes to that
+well-remembered face. "It has been several years since we met. How have
+you been all this time, and where?"
+
+"I have been sick, and am just now recovering from malaria and nervous
+prostration. I am attending a medical convention in this city, and hope
+that I shall have the pleasure of seeing you again."
+
+Iola hesitated, and then replied: "I should be pleased to have you
+call."
+
+"It would give me great pleasure. Where shall I call?"
+
+"My home is 1006 South Street, but I am only at home in the evenings."
+
+They walked together a short distance till they reached Mr. Cloten's
+store; then, bidding the doctor good morning, Iola left him repeating to
+himself the words of his favorite poet:--
+
+    "Thou art too lovely and precious a gem
+      To be bound to their burdens and sullied by them."
+
+No one noticed the deep flush on Iola's face as she entered the store,
+nor the subdued, quiet manner with which she applied herself to her
+tasks. She was living over again the past, with its tender, sad, and
+thrilling reminiscences.
+
+In the evening Dr. Gresham called on Iola. She met him with a pleasant
+welcome. Dr. Gresham gazed upon her with unfeigned admiration, and
+thought that the years, instead of detracting from, had only
+intensified, her loveliness. He had thought her very beautiful in the
+hospital, in her gray dress and white collar, with her glorious wealth
+of hair drawn over her ears. But now, when he saw her with that hair
+artistically arranged, and her finely-proportioned form arrayed in a
+dark crimson dress, relieved by a shimmer of lace and a bow of white
+ribbon at her throat, he thought her superbly handsome. The lines which
+care had written upon her young face had faded away. There was no
+undertone of sorrow in her voice as she stood up before him in the calm
+loveliness of her ripened womanhood, radiant in beauty and gifted in
+intellect. Time and failing health had left their traces upon Dr.
+Gresham. His step was less bounding, his cheek a trifle paler, his
+manner somewhat graver than it was when he had parted from Iola in the
+hospital, but his meeting with her had thrilled his heart with
+unexpected pleasure. Hopes and sentiments which long had slept awoke at
+the touch of her hand and the tones of her voice, and Dr. Gresham found
+himself turning to the past, with its sad memories and disappointed
+hopes. No other face had displaced her image in his mind; no other love
+had woven itself around every tendril of his soul. His heart and hand
+were just as free as they were the hour they had parted.
+
+"To see you again," said Dr. Gresham, "is a great and unexpected
+pleasure."
+
+"You had not forgotten me, then?" said Iola, smiling.
+
+"Forget you! I would just as soon forget my own existence. I do not
+think that time will ever efface the impressions of those days in which
+we met so often. When last we met you were intending to search for your
+mother. Have you been successful?"
+
+"More than successful," said Iola, with a joyous ring in her voice. "I
+have found my mother, brother, grandmother, and uncle, and, except my
+brother, we are all living together, and we are so happy. Excuse me a
+few minutes," she said, and left the room. Iola soon returned, bringing
+with her her mother and grandmother.
+
+"These," said Iola, introducing her mother and grandmother, "are the
+once-severed branches of our family; and this gentleman you have seen
+before," continued Iola, as Robert entered the room.
+
+Dr. Gresham looked scrutinizingly at him and said: "Your face looks
+familiar, but I saw so many faces at the hospital that I cannot just now
+recall your name."
+
+"Doctor," said Robert Johnson, "I was one of your last patients, and I
+was with Tom Anderson when he died."
+
+"Oh, yes," replied Dr. Gresham; "it all comes back to me. You were
+wounded at the battle of Five Forks, were you not?"
+
+"Yes," said Robert.
+
+"I saw you when you were recovering. You told me that you thought you
+had a clue to your lost relatives, from whom you had been so long
+separated. How have you succeeded?"
+
+"Admirably! I have been fortunate in finding my mother, my sister, and
+her children."
+
+"Ah, indeed! I am delighted to hear it. Where are they?"
+
+"They are right here. This is my mother," said Robert, bending fondly
+over her, as she returned his recognition with an expression of intense
+satisfaction; "and this," he continued, "is my sister, and Miss Leroy is
+my niece."
+
+"Is it possible? I am very glad to hear it. It has been said that every
+cloud has its silver lining, and the silver lining of our war cloud is
+the redemption of a race and the reunion of severed hearts. War is a
+dreadful thing; but worse than the war was the slavery which preceded
+it."
+
+"Slavery," said Iola, "was a fearful cancer eating into the nation's
+heart, sapping its vitality, and undermining its life."
+
+"And war," said Dr. Gresham, "was the dreadful surgery by which the
+disease was eradicated. The cancer has been removed, but for years to
+come I fear that we will have to deal with the effects of the disease.
+But I believe that we have vitality enough to outgrow those effects."
+
+"I think, Doctor," said Iola, "that there is but one remedy by which our
+nation can recover from the evil entailed upon her by slavery."
+
+"What is that?" asked Robert.
+
+"A fuller comprehension of the claims of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and
+their application to our national life."
+
+"Yes," said Robert; "while politicians are stumbling on the barren
+mountains of fretful controversy and asking what shall we do with the
+negro? I hold that Jesus answered that question nearly two thousand
+years ago when he said, 'Whatsoever ye would that men should do to you,
+do ye even so to them.'"
+
+"Yes," said Dr. Gresham; "the application of that rule in dealing with
+the negro would solve the whole problem."
+
+"Slavery," said Mrs. Leroy, "is dead, but the spirit which animated it
+still lives; and I think that a reckless disregard for human life is
+more the outgrowth of slavery than any actual hatred of the negro."
+
+"The problem of the nation," continued Dr. Gresham, "is not what men
+will do with the negro, but what will they do with the reckless, lawless
+white men who murder, lynch and burn their fellow-citizens. To me these
+lynchings and burnings are perfectly alarming. Both races have reacted
+on each other--men fettered the slave and cramped their own souls;
+denied him knowledge, and darkened their spiritual insight; subdued him
+to the pliancy of submission, and in their turn became the thralls of
+public opinion. The negro came here from the heathenism of Africa; but
+the young colonies could not take into their early civilization a stream
+of barbaric blood without being affected by its influence and the negro,
+poor and despised as he is, has laid his hands on our Southern
+civilization and helped mould its character."
+
+"Yes," said Mrs. Leroy; "the colored nurse could not nestle her master's
+child in her arms, hold up his baby footsteps on their floors, and walk
+with him through the impressible and formative period of his young life
+without leaving upon him the impress of her hand."
+
+"I am glad," said Robert, "for the whole nation's sake, that slavery
+has been destroyed."
+
+"And our work," said Dr. Gresham, "is to build over the desolations of
+the past a better and brighter future. The great distinction between
+savagery and civilization is the creation and maintenance of law.
+A people cannot habitually trample on law and justice without
+retrograding toward barbarism. But I am hopeful that time will bring us
+changes for the better; that, as we get farther away from the war, we
+will outgrow the animosities and prejudices engendered by slavery. The
+short-sightedness of our fathers linked the negro's destiny to ours. We
+are feeling the friction of the ligatures which bind us together, but I
+hope that the time will speedily come when the best members of both
+races will unite for the maintenance of law and order and the progress
+and prosperity of the country, and that the intelligence and virtue of
+the South will be strong to grapple effectually with its ignorance and
+vice."
+
+"I hope that time will speedily come," said Marie. "My son is in the
+South, and I am always anxious for his safety. He is not only a teacher,
+but a leading young man in the community where he lives."
+
+"Yes," said Robert, "and when I see the splendid work he is doing in the
+South, I am glad that, instead of trying to pass for a white man, he has
+cast his lot with us."
+
+"But," answered Dr. Gresham, "he would possess advantages as a white man
+which he could not if he were known to be colored."
+
+"Doctor," said Iola, decidedly, "he has greater advantages as a colored
+man."
+
+"I do not understand you," said Dr. Gresham, looking somewhat puzzled.
+
+"Doctor," continued Iola, "I do not think life's highest advantages are
+those that we can see with our eyes or grasp with our hands. To whom
+to-day is the world most indebted--to its millionaires or to its
+martyrs?"
+
+"Taking it from the ideal standpoint," replied the doctor, "I should say
+its martyrs."
+
+"To be," continued Iola, "the leader of a race to higher planes of
+thought and action, to teach men clearer views of life and duty, and to
+inspire their souls with loftier aims, is a far greater privilege than
+it is to open the gates of material prosperity and fill every home with
+sensuous enjoyment."
+
+"And I," said Mrs. Leroy, her face aglow with fervid feeling, "would
+rather--ten thousand times rather--see Harry the friend and helper of
+the poor and ignorant than the companion of men who, under the cover of
+night, mask their faces and ride the country on lawless raids."
+
+"Dr. Gresham," said Robert, "we ought to be the leading nation of the
+earth, whose influence and example should give light to the world."
+
+"Not simply," said Iola, "a nation building up a great material
+prosperity, founding magnificent cities, grasping the commerce of the
+world, or excelling in literature, art, and science, but a nation
+wearing sobriety as a crown and righteousness as the girdle of her
+loins."
+
+Dr. Gresham gazed admiringly upon Iola. A glow of enthusiasm overspread
+her beautiful, expressive face. There was a rapt and far-off look in her
+eye, as if she were looking beyond the present pain to a brighter
+future for the race with which she was identified, and felt the
+grandeur of a divine commission to labor for its uplifting.
+
+As Dr. Gresham was parting with Robert, he said: "This meeting has been
+a very unexpected pleasure. I have spent a delightful evening. I only
+regret that I had not others to share it with me. A doctor from the
+South, a regular Bourbon, is stopping at the hotel. I wish he could have
+been here to-night. Come down to the Concordia, Mr. Johnson, to-morrow
+night. If you know any colored man who is a strong champion of equal
+rights, bring him along. Good-night. I shall look for you," said the
+doctor, as he left the door.
+
+When Robert returned to the parlor he said to Iola: "Dr. Gresham has
+invited me to come to his hotel to-morrow night, and to bring some
+wide-awake colored man with me. There is a Southerner whom he wishes me
+to meet. I suppose he wants to discuss the negro problem, as they call
+it. He wants some one who can do justice to the subject. I wonder whom I
+can take with me?"
+
+"I will tell you who, I think, will be a capital one to take with you,
+and I believe he would go," said Iola.
+
+"Who?" asked Robert.
+
+"Rev. Carmicle, your pastor."
+
+"He is just the one," said Robert, "courteous in his manner and very
+scholarly in his attainments. He is a man whom if everybody hated him no
+one could despise him."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVI.
+
+
+OPEN QUESTIONS.
+
+In the evening Robert and Rev. Carmicle called on Dr. Gresham, and found
+Dr. Latrobe, the Southerner, and a young doctor by the name of Latimer,
+already there. Dr. Gresham introduced Dr. Latrobe, but it was a new
+experience to receive colored men socially. His wits, however, did not
+forsake him, and he received the introduction and survived it.
+
+"Permit me, now," said Dr. Gresham, "to introduce you to my friend, Dr.
+Latimer, who is attending our convention. He expects to go South and
+labor among the colored people. Don't you think that there is a large
+field of usefulness before him?"
+
+"Yes," replied Dr. Latrobe, "if he will let politics alone."
+
+"And why let politics alone?" asked Dr. Gresham.
+
+"Because," replied Dr. Latrobe, "we Southerners will never submit to
+negro supremacy. We will never abandon our Caucasian civilization to an
+inferior race."
+
+"Have you any reason," inquired Rev. Carmicle, "to dread that a race
+which has behind it the heathenism of Africa and the slavery of America,
+with its inheritance of ignorance and poverty, will be able, in less
+than one generation, to domineer over a race which has behind it ages of
+dominion, freedom, education, and Christianity?"
+
+A slight shade of vexation and astonishment passed over the face of Dr.
+Latrobe. He hesitated a moment, then replied:--
+
+"I am not afraid of the negro as he stands alone, but what I dread is
+that in some closely-contested election ambitious men will use him to
+hold the balance of power and make him an element of danger. He is
+ignorant, poor, and clannish, and they may impact him as their policy
+would direct."
+
+"Any more," asked Robert, "than the leaders of the Rebellion did the
+ignorant, poor whites during our late conflict?"
+
+"Ignorance, poverty, and clannishness," said Dr. Gresham, "are more
+social than racial conditions, which may be outgrown."
+
+"And I think," said Rev. Carmicle, "that we are outgrowing them as fast
+as any other people would have done under the same conditions."
+
+"The negro," replied Dr. Latrobe, "always has been and always will be an
+element of discord in our country."
+
+"What, then, is your remedy?" asked Dr. Gresham.
+
+"I would eliminate him from the politics of the country."
+
+"As disfranchisement is a punishment for crime, is it just to punish a
+man before he transgresses the law?" asked Dr. Gresham.
+
+"If," said Dr. Latimer, "the negro is ignorant, poor, and clannish, let
+us remember that in part of our land it was once a crime to teach him to
+read. If he is poor, for ages he was forced to bend to unrequited toil.
+If he is clannish, society has segregated him to himself."
+
+"And even," said Robert, "has given him a negro pew in your churches
+and a negro seat at your communion table."
+
+"Wisely, or unwisely," said Dr. Gresham, "the Government has put the
+ballot in his hands. It is better to teach him to use that ballot aright
+than to intimidate him by violence or vitiate his vote by fraud."
+
+"To-day," said Dr. Latimer, "the negro is not plotting in beer-saloons
+against the peace and order of society. His fingers are not dripping
+with dynamite, neither is he spitting upon your flag, nor flaunting the
+red banner of anarchy in your face."
+
+"Power," said Dr. Gresham, "naturally gravitates into the strongest
+hands. The class who have the best brain and most wealth can strike with
+the heaviest hand. I have too much faith in the inherent power of the
+white race to dread the competition of any other people under heaven."
+
+"I think you Northerners fail to do us justice," said Dr. Latrobe. "The
+men into whose hands you put the ballot were our slaves, and we would
+rather die than submit to them. Look at the carpet-bag governments the
+wicked policy of the Government inflicted upon us. It was only done to
+humiliate us."
+
+"Oh, no!" said Dr. Gresham, flushing, and rising to his feet. "We had no
+other alternative than putting the ballot in their hands."
+
+"I will not deny," said Rev. Carmicle, "that we have made woeful
+mistakes, but with our antecedents it would have been miraculous if we
+had never committed any mistakes or made any blunders."
+
+"They were allies in war," continued Dr. Gresham, "and I am sorry that
+we have not done more to protect them in peace."
+
+"Protect them in peace!" said Robert, bitterly. "What protection does
+the colored man receive from the hands of the Government? I know of no
+civilized country outside of America where men are still burned for real
+or supposed crimes."
+
+"Johnson," said Dr. Gresham, compassionately, "it is impossible to have
+a policeman at the back of each colored man's chair, and a squad of
+soldiers at each crossroad, to detect with certainty, and punish with
+celerity, each invasion of his rights. We tried provisional governments
+and found them a failure. It seemed like leaving our former allies to be
+mocked with the name of freedom and tortured with the essence of
+slavery. The ballot is our weapon of defense, and we gave it to them for
+theirs."
+
+"And there," said Dr. Latrobe, emphatically, "is where you signally
+failed. We are numerically stronger in Congress to-day than when we went
+out. You made the law, but the administration of it is in our hands, and
+we are a unit."
+
+"But, Doctor," said Rev. Carmicle, "you cannot willfully deprive the
+negro of a single right as a citizen without sending demoralization
+through your own ranks."
+
+"I think," said Dr. Latrobe, "that we are right in suppressing the
+negro's vote. This is a white man's government, and a white man's
+country. We own nineteen-twentieths of the land, and have about the same
+ratio of intelligence. I am a white man, and, right or wrong, I go with
+my race."
+
+"But, Doctor," said Rev. Carmicle, "there are rights more sacred than
+the rights of property and superior intelligence."
+
+"What are they?" asked Dr. Latrobe.
+
+"The rights of life and liberty," replied Rev. Carmicle.
+
+"That is true," said Dr. Gresham; "and your Southern civilization will
+be inferior until you shall have placed protection to those rights at
+its base, not in theory but in fact."
+
+"But, Dr. Gresham, we have to live with these people, and the North is
+constantly irritating us by its criticisms."
+
+"The world," said Dr. Gresham, "is fast becoming a vast whispering
+gallery, and lips once sealed can now state their own grievances and
+appeal to the conscience of the nation, and, as long as a sense of
+justice and mercy retains a hold upon the heart of our nation, you
+cannot practice violence and injustice without rousing a spirit of
+remonstrance. And if it were not so I would be ashamed of my country and
+of my race."
+
+"You speak," said Dr. Latrobe, "as if we had wronged the negro by
+enslaving him and being unwilling to share citizenship with him. I think
+that slavery has been of incalculable value to the negro. It has lifted
+him out of barbarism and fetich worship, given him a language of
+civilization, and introduced him to the world's best religion. Think
+what he was in Africa and what he is in America!"
+
+"The negro," said Dr. Gresham, thoughtfully, "is not the only branch of
+the human race which has been low down in the scale of civilization and
+freedom, and which has outgrown the measure of his chains. Slavery,
+polygamy, and human sacrifices have been practiced among Europeans in
+by-gone days; and when Tyndall tells us that out of savages unable to
+count to the number of their fingers and speaking only a language of
+nouns and verbs, arise at length our Newtons and Shakspeares, I do not
+see that the negro could not have learned our language and received our
+religion without the intervention of ages of slavery."
+
+"If," said Rev. Carmicle, "Mohammedanism, with its imperfect creed, is
+successful in gathering large numbers of negroes beneath the Crescent,
+could not a legitimate commerce and the teachings of a pure Christianity
+have done as much to plant the standard of the Cross over the ramparts
+of sin and idolatry in Africa? Surely we cannot concede that the light
+of the Crescent is greater than the glory of the Cross, that there is
+less constraining power in the Christ of Calvary than in the Prophet of
+Arabia? I do not think that I underrate the difficulties in your way
+when I say that you young men are holding in your hands golden
+opportunities which it would be madness and folly to throw away. It is
+your grand opportunity to help build up a new South, not on the shifting
+sands of policy and expediency, but on the broad basis of equal justice
+and universal freedom. Do this and you will be blessed, and will make
+your life a blessing."
+
+After Robert and Rev. Carmicle had left the hotel, Drs. Latimer,
+Gresham, and Latrobe sat silent and thoughtful awhile, when Dr. Gresham
+broke the silence by asking Dr. Latrobe how he had enjoyed the evening.
+
+"Very pleasantly," he replied. "I was quite interested in that parson.
+Where was he educated?"
+
+"In Oxford, I believe. I was pleased to hear him say that he had no
+white blood in his veins."
+
+"I should think not," replied Dr. Latrobe, "from his looks. But one
+swallow does not make a summer. It is the exceptions which prove the
+rule."
+
+"Don't you think," asked Dr. Gresham, "that we have been too hasty in
+our judgment of the negro? He has come handicapped into life, and is now
+on trial before the world. But it is not fair to subject him to the same
+tests that you would a white man. I believe that there are possibilities
+of growth in the race which we have never comprehended."
+
+"The negro," said Dr. Latrobe, "is perfectly comprehensible to me. The
+only way to get along with him is to let him know his place, and make
+him keep it."
+
+"I think," replied Dr. Gresham, "every man's place is the one he is best
+fitted for."
+
+"Why," asked Dr. Latimer, "should any place be assigned to the negro
+more than to the French, Irish, or German?"
+
+"Oh," replied Dr. Latrobe, "they are all Caucasians."
+
+"Well," said Dr. Gresham, "is all excellence summed up in that branch of
+the human race?"
+
+"I think," said Dr. Latrobe, proudly, "that we belong to the highest
+race on earth and the negro to the lowest."
+
+"And yet," said Dr. Latimer, "you have consorted with them till you have
+bleached their faces to the whiteness of your own. Your children nestle
+in their bosoms; they are around you as body servants, and yet if one of
+them should attempt to associate with you your bitterest scorn and
+indignation would be visited upon them."
+
+"I think," said Dr. Latrobe, "that feeling grows out of our Anglo-Saxon
+regard for the marriage relation. These white negroes are of
+illegitimate origin, and we would scorn to share our social life with
+them. Their blood is tainted."
+
+"Who tainted it?" asked Dr. Latimer, bitterly. "You give absolution to
+the fathers, and visit the misfortunes of the mothers upon the
+children."
+
+"But, Doctor, what kind of society would we have if we put down the bars
+and admitted everybody to social equality?"
+
+"This idea of social equality," said Dr. Latimer, "is only a bugbear
+which frightens well-meaning people from dealing justly with the negro.
+I know of no place on earth where there is perfect social equality, and
+I doubt if there is such a thing in heaven. The sinner who repents on
+his death-bed cannot be the equal of St. Paul or the Beloved Disciple."
+
+"Doctor," said Dr. Gresham, "I sometimes think that the final solution
+of this question will be the absorption of the negro into our race."
+
+"Never! never!" exclaimed Dr. Latrobe, vehemently. "It would be a death
+blow to American civilization."
+
+"Why, Doctor," said Dr. Latimer, "you Southerners began this absorption
+before the war. I understand that in one decade the mixed bloods rose
+from one-ninth to one-eighth of the population, and that as early as
+1663 a law was passed in Maryland to prevent English women from
+intermarrying with slaves; and, even now, your laws against
+miscegenation presuppose that you apprehend danger from that source."
+
+"Doctor, it is no use talking," replied Dr. Latrobe, wearily. "There
+are niggers who are as white as I am, but the taint of blood is there
+and we always exclude it."
+
+"How do you know it is there?" asked Dr. Gresham.
+
+"Oh, there are tricks of blood which always betray them. My eyes are
+more practiced than yours. I can always tell them. Now, that Johnson is
+as white as any man; but I knew he was a nigger the moment I saw him. I
+saw it in his eye."
+
+Dr. Latimer smiled at Dr. Latrobe's assertion, but did not attempt to
+refute it; and bade him good-night.
+
+"I think," said Dr. Latrobe, "that our war was the great mistake of the
+nineteenth century. It has left us very serious complications. We cannot
+amalgamate with the negroes. We cannot expatriate them. Now, what are we
+to do with them?"
+
+"Deal justly with them," said Dr. Gresham, "and let them alone. Try to
+create a moral sentiment in the nation, which will consider a wrong done
+to the weakest of them as a wrong done to the whole community. Whenever
+you find ministers too righteous to be faithless, cowardly, and time
+serving; women too Christly to be scornful; and public men too noble to
+be tricky and too honest to pander to the prejudices of the people,
+stand by them and give them your moral support."
+
+"Doctor," said Latrobe, "with your views you ought to be a preacher
+striving to usher in the millennium."
+
+"It can't come too soon," replied Dr. Gresham.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVII.
+
+
+DIVERGING PATHS.
+
+On the eve of his departure from the city of P----, Dr. Gresham called
+on Iola, and found her alone. They talked awhile of reminiscences of the
+war and hospital life, when Dr. Gresham, approaching Iola, said:--
+
+"Miss Leroy, I am glad the great object of your life is accomplished,
+and that you have found all your relatives. Years have passed since we
+parted, years in which I have vainly tried to get a trace of you and
+have been baffled, but I have found you at last!" Clasping her hand in
+his, he continued, "I would it were so that I should never lose you
+again! Iola, will you not grant me the privilege of holding this hand as
+mine all through the future of our lives? Your search for your mother is
+ended. She is well cared for. Are you not free at last to share with me
+my Northern home, free to be mine as nothing else on earth is mine." Dr.
+Gresham looked eagerly on Iola's face, and tried to read its varying
+expression. "Iola, I learned to love you in the hospital. I have tried
+to forget you, but it has been all in vain. Your image is just as deeply
+engraven on my heart as it was the day we parted."
+
+"Doctor," she replied, sadly, but firmly, as she withdrew her hand from
+his, "I feel now as I felt then, that there is an insurmountable barrier
+between us."
+
+"What is it, Iola?" asked Dr. Gresham, anxiously.
+
+"It is the public opinion which assigns me a place with the colored
+people."
+
+"But what right has public opinion to interfere with our marriage
+relations? Why should we yield to its behests?"
+
+"Because it is stronger than we are, and we cannot run counter to it
+without suffering its penalties."
+
+"And what are they, Iola? Shadows that you merely dread?"
+
+"No! no! the penalties of social ostracism North and South, except here
+and there some grand and noble exceptions. I do not think that you fully
+realize how much prejudice against colored people permeates society,
+lowers the tone of our religion, and reacts upon the life of the nation.
+After freedom came, mamma was living in the city of A----, and wanted to
+unite with a Christian church there. She made application for
+membership. She passed her examination as a candidate, and was received
+as a church member. When she was about to make her first communion, she
+unintentionally took her seat at the head of the column. The elder who
+was administering the communion gave her the bread in the order in which
+she sat, but before he gave her the wine some one touched him on the
+shoulder and whispered a word in his ear. He then passed mamma by, gave
+the cup to others, and then returned to her. From that rite connected
+with the holiest memories of earth, my poor mother returned humiliated
+and depressed."
+
+"What a shame!" exclaimed Dr. Gresham, indignantly.
+
+"I have seen," continued Iola, "the same spirit manifested in the North.
+Mamma once attempted to do missionary work in this city. One day she
+found an outcast colored girl, whom she wished to rescue. She took her
+to an asylum for fallen women and made an application for her, but was
+refused. Colored girls were not received there. Soon after mamma found
+among the colored people an outcast white girl. Mamma's sympathies,
+unfettered by class distinction, were aroused in her behalf, and, in
+company with two white ladies, she went with the girl to that same
+refuge. For her the door was freely opened and admittance readily
+granted. It was as if two women were sinking in the quicksands, and on
+the solid land stood other women with life-lines in their hands, seeing
+the deadly sands slowly creeping up around the hapless victims. To one
+they readily threw the lines of deliverance, but for the other there was
+not one strand of salvation. Sometime since, to the same asylum, came a
+poor fallen girl who had escaped from the clutches of a wicked woman.
+For her the door would have been opened, had not the vile woman from
+whom she was escaping followed her to that place of refuge and revealed
+the fact that she belonged to the colored race. That fact was enough to
+close the door upon her, and to send her back to sin and to suffer, and
+perhaps to die as a wretched outcast. And yet in this city where a
+number of charities are advertised, I do not think there is one of them
+which, in appealing to the public, talks more religion than the managers
+of this asylum. This prejudice against the colored race environs our
+lives and mocks our aspirations."
+
+"Iola, I see no use in your persisting that you are colored when your
+eyes are as blue and complexion as white as mine."
+
+"Doctor, were I your wife, are there not people who would caress me as
+a white woman who would shrink from me in scorn if they knew I had one
+drop of negro blood in my veins? When mistaken for a white woman, I
+should hear things alleged against the race at which my blood would
+boil. No, Doctor, I am not willing to live under a shadow of concealment
+which I thoroughly hate as if the blood in my veins were an undetected
+crime of my soul."
+
+"Iola, dear, surely you paint the picture too darkly."
+
+"Doctor, I have painted it with my heart's blood. It is easier to
+outgrow the dishonor of crime than the disabilities of color. You have
+created in this country an aristocracy of color wide enough to include
+the South with its treason and Utah with its abominations, but too
+narrow to include the best and bravest colored man who bared his breast
+to the bullets of the enemy during your fratricidal strife. Is not the
+most arrant Rebel to-day more acceptable to you than the most faithful
+colored man?"
+
+"No! no!" exclaimed Dr. Gresham, vehemently. "You are wrong. I belong to
+the Grand Army of the Republic. We have no separate State Posts for the
+colored people, and, were such a thing proposed, the majority of our
+members, I believe, would be against it. In Congress colored men have
+the same seats as white men, and the color line is slowly fading out in
+our public institutions."
+
+"But how is it in the Church?" asked Iola.
+
+"The Church is naturally conservative. It preserves old truths, even if
+it is somewhat slow in embracing new ideas. It has its social as well as
+its spiritual side. Society is woman's realm. The majority of church
+members are women, who are said to be the aristocratic element of our
+country. I fear that one of the last strongholds of this racial
+prejudice will be found beneath the shadow of some of our churches. I
+think, on account of this social question, that large bodies of
+Christian temperance women and other reformers, in trying to reach the
+colored people even for their own good, will be quicker to form
+separate associations than our National Grand Army, whose ranks are open
+to black and white, liberals and conservatives, saints and agnostics.
+But, Iola, we have drifted far away from the question. No one has a
+right to interfere with our marriage if we do not infringe on the rights
+of others."
+
+"Doctor," she replied, gently, "I feel that our paths must diverge. My
+life-work is planned. I intend spending my future among the colored
+people of the South."
+
+"My dear friend," he replied, anxiously, "I am afraid that you are
+destined to sad disappointment. When the novelty wears off you will be
+disillusioned, and, I fear, when the time comes that you can no longer
+serve them they will forget your services and remember only your
+failings."
+
+"But, Doctor, they need me; and I am sure when I taught among them they
+were very grateful for my services."
+
+"I think," he replied, "these people are more thankful than grateful."
+
+"I do not think so; and if I did it would not hinder me from doing all
+in my power to help them. I do not expect all the finest traits of
+character to spring from the hot-beds of slavery and caste. What matters
+it if they do forget the singer, so they don't forget the song? No,
+Doctor, I don't think that I could best serve my race by forsaking them
+and marrying you."
+
+"Iola," he exclaimed, passionately, "if you love your race, as you call
+it, work for it, live for it, suffer for it, and, if need be, die for
+it; but don't marry for it. Your education has unfitted you for social
+life among them."
+
+"It was," replied Iola, "through their unrequited toil that I was
+educated, while they were compelled to live in ignorance. I am indebted
+to them for the power I have to serve them. I wish other Southern women
+felt as I do. I think they could do so much to help the colored people
+at their doors if they would look at their opportunities in the light of
+the face of Jesus Christ. Nor am I wholly unselfish in allying myself
+with the colored people. All the rest of my family have done so. My dear
+grandmother is one of the excellent of the earth, and we all love her
+too much to ignore our relationship with her. I did not choose my lot in
+life, and the simplest thing I can do is to accept the situation and do
+the best I can."
+
+"And is this your settled purpose?" he asked, sadly.
+
+"It is, Doctor," she replied, tenderly but firmly. "I see no other. I
+must serve the race which needs me most."
+
+"Perhaps you are right," he replied; "but I cannot help feeling sad that
+our paths, which met so pleasantly, should diverge so painfully. And
+yet, not only the freedmen, but the whole country, need such helpful,
+self-sacrificing teachers as you will prove; and if earnest prayers and
+holy wishes can brighten your path, your lines will fall in the
+pleasantest places."
+
+As he rose to go, sympathy, love, and admiration were blended in the
+parting look he gave her; but he felt it was useless to attempt to
+divert her from her purpose. He knew that for the true reconstruction of
+the country something more was needed than bayonets and bullets, or the
+schemes of selfish politicians or plotting demagogues. He knew that the
+South needed the surrender of the best brain and heart of the country to
+build, above the wastes of war, more stately temples of thought and
+action.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXVIII.
+
+
+DR. LATROBE'S MISTAKE.
+
+On the morning previous to their departure for their respective homes,
+Dr. Gresham met Dr. Latrobe in the parlor of the Concordia.
+
+"How," asked Dr. Gresham, "did you like Dr. Latimer's paper?"
+
+"Very much, indeed. It was excellent. He is a very talented young man.
+He sits next to me at lunch and I have conversed with him several times.
+He is very genial and attractive, only he seems to be rather cranky on
+the negro question. I hope if he comes South that he will not make the
+mistake of mixing up with the negroes. It would be throwing away his
+influence and ruining his prospects. He seems to be well versed in
+science and literature and would make a very delightful accession to our
+social life."
+
+"I think," replied Dr. Gresham, "that he is an honor to our profession.
+He is one of the finest specimens of our young manhood."
+
+Just then Dr. Latimer entered the room. Dr. Latrobe arose and, greeting
+him cordially, said: "I was delighted with your paper; it was full of
+thought and suggestion."
+
+"Thank you," answered Dr. Latimer, "it was my aim to make it so."
+
+"And you succeeded admirably," replied Dr. Latrobe. "I could not help
+thinking how much we owe to heredity and environment."
+
+"Yes," said Dr. Gresham. "Continental Europe yearly sends to our shores
+subjects to be developed into citizens. Emancipation has given us
+millions of new citizens, and to them our influence and example should
+be a blessing and not a curse."
+
+"Well," said Dr. Latimer, "I intend to go South, and help those who so
+much need helpers from their own ranks."
+
+"I hope," answered Dr. Latrobe, "that if you go South you will only
+sustain business relations with the negroes, and not commit the folly of
+equalizing yourself with them."
+
+"Why not?" asked Dr. Latimer, steadily looking him in the eye.
+
+"Because in equalizing yourself with them you drag us down; and our
+social customs must be kept intact."
+
+"You have been associating with me at the convention for several days; I
+do not see that the contact has dragged you down, has it?"
+
+"You! What has that got to do with associating with niggers?" asked Dr.
+Latrobe, curtly.
+
+"The blood of that race is coursing through my veins. I am one of them,"
+replied Dr. Latimer, proudly raising his head.
+
+"You!" exclaimed Dr. Latrobe, with an air of profound astonishment and
+crimsoning face.
+
+"Yes;" interposed Dr. Gresham, laughing heartily at Dr. Latrobe's
+discomfiture. "He belongs to that negro race both by blood and choice.
+His father's mother made overtures to receive him as her grandson and
+heir, but he has nobly refused to forsake his mother's people and has
+cast his lot with them."
+
+"And I," said Dr. Latimer, "would have despised myself if I had done
+otherwise."
+
+"Well, well," said Dr. Latrobe, rising, "I was never so deceived before.
+Good morning!"
+
+Dr. Latrobe had thought he was clear-sighted enough to detect the
+presence of negro blood when all physical traces had disappeared. But he
+had associated with Dr. Latimer for several days, and admired his
+talent, without suspecting for one moment his racial connection. He
+could not help feeling a sense of vexation at the signal mistake he had
+made.
+
+Dr. Frank Latimer was the natural grandson of a Southern lady, in whose
+family his mother had been a slave. The blood of a proud aristocratic
+ancestry was flowing through his veins, and generations of blood
+admixture had effaced all trace of his negro lineage. His complexion was
+blonde, his eye bright and piercing, his lips firm and well moulded; his
+manner very affable; his intellect active and well stored with
+information. He was a man capable of winning in life through his rich
+gifts of inheritance and acquirements. When freedom came, his mother,
+like Hagar of old, went out into the wide world to seek a living for
+herself and child. Through years of poverty she labored to educate her
+child, and saw the glad fruition of her hopes when her son graduated as
+an M.D. from the University of P----.
+
+After his graduation he met his father's mother, who recognized him by
+his resemblance to her dear, departed son. All the mother love in her
+lonely heart awoke, and she was willing to overlook "the missing link of
+matrimony," and adopt him as her heir, if he would ignore his identity
+with the colored race.
+
+Before him loomed all the possibilities which only birth and blood can
+give a white man in our Democratic country. But he was a man of too much
+sterling worth of character to be willing to forsake his mother's race
+for the richest advantages his grandmother could bestow.
+
+Dr. Gresham had met Dr. Latimer at the beginning of the convention, and
+had been attracted to him by his frank and genial manner. One morning,
+when conversing with him, Dr. Gresham had learned some of the salient
+points of his history, which, instead of repelling him, had only
+deepened his admiration for the young doctor. He was much amused when he
+saw the pleasant acquaintanceship between him and Dr. Latrobe, but they
+agreed to be silent about his racial connection until the time came when
+they were ready to divulge it; and they were hugely delighted at his
+signal blunder.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXIX.
+
+
+VISITORS FROM THE SOUTH.
+
+"Mamma is not well," said Iola to Robert. "I spoke to her about sending
+for a doctor, but she objected and I did not insist."
+
+"I will ask Dr. Latimer, whom I met at the Concordia, to step in. He is
+a splendid young fellow. I wish we had thousands like him."
+
+In the evening the doctor called. Without appearing to make a
+professional visit he engaged Marie in conversation, watched her
+carefully, and came to the conclusion that her failing health proceeded
+more from mental than physical causes.
+
+"I am so uneasy about Harry," said Mrs. Leroy. "He is so fearless and
+outspoken. I do wish the attention of the whole nation could be turned
+to the cruel barbarisms which are a national disgrace. I think the term
+'bloody shirt' is one of the most heartless phrases ever invented to
+divert attention from cruel wrongs and dreadful outrages."
+
+Just then Iola came in and was introduced by her uncle to Dr. Latimer,
+to whom the introduction was a sudden and unexpected pleasure.
+
+After an interchange of courtesies, Marie resumed the conversation,
+saying: "Harry wrote me only last week that a young friend of his had
+lost his situation because he refused to have his pupils strew flowers
+on the streets through which Jefferson Davis was to pass."
+
+"I think," said Dr. Latimer, indignantly, "that the Israelites had just
+as much right to scatter flowers over the bodies of the Egyptians, when
+the waves threw back their corpses on the shores of the Red Sea, as
+these children had to strew the path of Jefferson Davis with flowers. We
+want our boys to grow up manly citizens, and not cringing sycophants.
+When do you expect your son, Mrs. Leroy?"
+
+"Some time next week," answered Marie.
+
+"And his presence will do you more good than all the medicine in my
+chest."
+
+"I hope, Doctor," said Mrs. Leroy, "that we will not lose sight of you,
+now that your professional visit is ended; for I believe your visit was
+the result of a conspiracy between Iola and her uncle."
+
+Dr. Latimer laughed, as he answered, "Ah, Mrs. Leroy, I see you have
+found us all out."
+
+"Oh, Doctor," exclaimed Iola, with pleasing excitement, "there is a
+young lady coming here to visit me next week. Her name is Miss Lucille
+Delany, and she is my ideal woman. She is grand, brave, intellectual,
+and religious."
+
+"Is that so? She would make some man an excellent wife," replied Dr.
+Latimer.
+
+"Now isn't that perfectly manlike," answered Iola, smiling. "Mamma, what
+do you think of that? Did any of you gentlemen ever see a young woman of
+much ability that you did not look upon as a flotsam all adrift until
+some man had appropriated her?"
+
+"I think, Miss Leroy, that the world's work, if shared, is better done
+than when it is performed alone. Don't you think your life-work will be
+better done if some one shares it with you?" asked Dr. Latimer, slowly,
+and with a smile in his eyes.
+
+"That would depend on the person who shared it," said Iola, faintly
+blushing.
+
+"Here," said Robert, a few evenings after this conversation, as he
+handed Iola a couple of letters, "is something which will please you."
+
+Iola took the letters, and, after reading one of them, said: "Miss
+Delany and Harry will be here on Wednesday; and this one is an
+invitation which also adds to my enjoyment."
+
+"What is it?" asked Marie; "an invitation to a hop or a german?"
+
+"No; but something which I value far more. We are all invited to Mr.
+Stillman's to a _conversazione_."
+
+"What is the object?"
+
+"His object is to gather some of the thinkers and leaders of the race to
+consult on subjects of vital interest to our welfare. He has invited Dr.
+Latimer, Professor Gradnor, of North Carolina, Mr. Forest, of New York,
+Hon. Dugdale, Revs. Carmicle, Cantnor, Tunster, Professor Langhorne, of
+Georgia, and a few ladies, Mrs. Watson, Miss Brown, and others."
+
+"I am glad that it is neither a hop nor a german," said Iola, "but
+something for which I have been longing."
+
+"Why, Iola," asked Robert, "don't you believe in young people having a
+good time?"
+
+"Oh, yes," answered Iola, seriously, "I believe in young people having
+amusements and recreations; but the times are too serious for us to
+attempt to make our lives a long holiday."
+
+"Well, Iola," answered Robert, "this is the first holiday we have had
+in two hundred and fifty years, and you shouldn't be too exacting."
+
+"Yes," replied Marie, "human beings naturally crave enjoyment, and if
+not furnished with good amusements they are apt to gravitate to low
+pleasures."
+
+"Some one," said Robert, "has said that the Indian belongs to an old
+race and looks gloomily back to the past, and that the negro belongs to
+a young race and looks hopefully towards the future."
+
+"If that be so," replied Marie, "our race-life corresponds more to the
+follies of youth than the faults of maturer years."
+
+On Dr. Latimer's next visit he was much pleased to see a great change in
+Marie's appearance. Her eye had grown brighter, her step more elastic,
+and the anxiety had faded from her face. Harry had arrived, and with him
+came Miss Delany.
+
+"Good evening, Dr. Latimer," said Iola, cheerily, as she entered the
+room with Miss Lucille Delany. "This is my friend, Miss Delany, from
+Georgia. Were she not present I would say she is one of the grandest
+women in America."
+
+"I am very much pleased to meet you," said Dr. Latimer, cordially; "I
+have heard Miss Leroy speak of you. We were expecting you," he added,
+with a smile.
+
+Just then Harry entered the room, and Iola presented him to Dr. Latimer,
+saying, "This is my brother, about whom mamma was so anxious."
+
+"Had you a pleasant journey?" asked Dr. Latimer, after the first
+greetings were over.
+
+"Not especially," answered Miss Delany. "Southern roads are not always
+very pleasant to travel. When Mr. Leroy entered the cars at A----, where
+he was known, had he taken his seat among the white people he would have
+been remanded to the colored."
+
+"But after awhile," said Harry, "as Miss Delany and myself were sitting
+together, laughing and chatting, a colored man entered the car, and,
+mistaking me for a white man, asked the conductor to have me removed,
+and I had to insist that I was colored in order to be permitted to
+remain. It would be ludicrous, if it were not vexatious, to be too white
+to be black, and too black to be white."
+
+"Caste plays such fantastic tricks in this country," said Dr. Latimer.
+
+"I tell Mr. Leroy," said Miss Delany, "that when he returns he must put
+a label on himself, saying, 'I am a colored man,' to prevent annoyance."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXX.
+
+
+FRIENDS IN COUNCIL.
+
+On the following Friday evening, Mr. Stillman's pleasant, spacious
+parlors were filled to overflowing with a select company of earnest men
+and women deeply interested in the welfare of the race.
+
+Bishop Tunster had prepared a paper on "Negro Emigration." Dr. Latimer
+opened the discussion by speaking favorably of some of the salient
+points, but said:--
+
+"I do not believe self-exilement is the true remedy for the wrongs of
+the negro. Where should he go if he left this country?"
+
+"Go to Africa," replied Bishop Tunster, in his bluff, hearty tones. "I
+believe that Africa is to be redeemed to civilization, and that the
+negro is to be gathered into the family of nations and recognized as a
+man and a brother."
+
+"Go to Africa?" repeated Professor Langhorne, of Georgia. "Does the
+United States own one foot of African soil? And have we not been
+investing our blood in the country for ages?"
+
+"I am in favor of missionary efforts," said Professor Gradnor, of North
+Carolina, "for the redemption of Africa, but I see no reason for
+expatriating ourselves because some persons do not admire the color of
+our skins."
+
+"I do not believe," said Mr. Stillman, "in emptying on the shores of
+Africa a horde of ignorant, poverty-stricken people, as missionaries of
+civilization or Christianity. And while I am in favor of missionary
+efforts, there is need here for the best heart and brain to work in
+unison for justice and righteousness."
+
+"America," said Miss Delany, "is the best field for human development.
+God has not heaped up our mountains with such grandeur, flooded our
+rivers with such majesty, crowned our valleys with such fertility,
+enriched our mines with such wealth, that they should only minister to
+grasping greed and sensuous enjoyment."
+
+"Climate, soil, and physical environments," said Professor Gradnor,
+"have much to do with shaping national characteristics. If in Africa,
+under a tropical sun, the negro has lagged behind other races in the
+march of civilization, at least for once in his history he has, in this
+country, the privilege of using climatic advantages and developing under
+new conditions."
+
+"Yes," replied Dr. Latimer, "and I do not wish our people to become
+restless and unsettled before they have tried one generation of
+freedom."
+
+"I am always glad," said Mr. Forest, a tall, distinguished-looking
+gentleman from New York, "when I hear of people who are ill treated in
+one section of the country emigrating to another. Men who are deaf to
+the claims of mercy, and oblivious to the demands of justice, can feel
+when money is slipping from their pockets."
+
+"The negro," said Hon. Dugdale, "does not present to my mind the picture
+of an effete and exhausted people, destined to die out before a stronger
+race. Gilbert Haven once saw a statue which suggested this thought, 'I
+am black, but comely; the sun has looked down upon me, but I will teach
+you who despise me to feel that I am your superior.' The men who are
+acquiring property and building up homes in the South show us what
+energy and determination may do even in that part of the country. I
+believe such men can do more to conquer prejudice than if they spent all
+their lives in shouting for their rights and ignoring their duties. No!
+as there are millions of us in this country, I think it best to settle
+down and work out our own salvation here."
+
+"How many of us to-day," asked Professor Langhorne, "would be teaching
+in the South, if every field of labor in the North was as accessible to
+us as to the whites? It has been estimated that a million young white
+men have left the South since the war, and, had our chances been equal
+to theirs, would we have been any more willing to stay in the South with
+those who need us than they? But this prejudice, by impacting us
+together, gives us a common cause and brings our intellect in contact
+with the less favored of our race."
+
+"I do not believe," said Miss Delany, "that the Southern white people
+themselves desire any wholesale exodus of the colored from their labor
+fields. It would be suicidal to attempt their expatriation."
+
+"History," said Professor Langhorne, "tells that Spain was once the
+place where barbarian Europe came to light her lamp. Seven hundred years
+before there was a public lamp in London you might have gone through the
+streets of Cordova amid ten miles of lighted lamps, and stood there on
+solidly paved land, when hundreds of years afterwards, in Paris, on a
+rainy day you would have sunk to your ankles in the mud. But she who
+bore the name of the 'Terror of Nations,' and the 'Queen of the Ocean,'
+was not strong enough to dash herself against God's law of retribution
+and escape unscathed. She inaugurated a crusade of horror against a
+million of her best laborers and artisans. Vainly she expected the
+blessing of God to crown her work of violence. Instead of seeing the
+fruition of her hopes in the increased prosperity of her land,
+depression and paralysis settled on her trade and business. A fearful
+blow was struck at her agriculture; decay settled on her manufactories;
+money became too scarce to pay the necessary expenses of the king's
+exchequer; and that once mighty empire became a fallen kingdom, pierced
+by her crimes and dragged down by her transgressions."
+
+"We did not," said Iola, "place the bounds of our habitation. And I
+believe we are to be fixtures in this country. But beyond the shadows I
+see the coruscation of a brighter day; and we can help usher it in, not
+by answering hate with hate, or giving scorn for scorn, but by striving
+to be more generous, noble, and just. It seems as if all creation
+travels to respond to the song of the Herald angels, 'Peace on earth,
+good-will toward men.'"
+
+The next paper was on "Patriotism," by Rev. Cantnor. It was a paper in
+which the white man was extolled as the master race, and spoke as if it
+were a privilege for the colored man to be linked to his destiny and to
+live beneath the shadow of his power. He asserted that the white race of
+this country is the broadest, most Christian, and humane of that branch
+of the human family.
+
+Dr. Latimer took exception to his position. "Law," he said, "is the
+pivot on which the whole universe turns; and obedience to law is the
+gauge by which a nation's strength or weakness is tried. We have had two
+evils by which our obedience to law has been tested--slavery and the
+liquor traffic. How have we dealt with them both? We have been weighed
+in the balance and found wanting. Millions of slaves and serfs have been
+liberated during this century, but not even in semi-barbaric Russia,
+heathen Japan, or Catholic Spain has slavery been abolished through such
+a fearful conflict as it was in the United States. The liquor traffic
+still sends its floods of ruin and shame to the habitations of men, and
+no political party has been found with enough moral power and numerical
+strength to stay the tide of death."
+
+"I think," said Professor Gradnor, "that what our country needs is truth
+more than flattery. I do not think that our moral life keeps pace with
+our mental development and material progress. I know of no civilized
+country on the globe, Catholic, Protestant, or Mohammedan, where life is
+less secure than it is in the South. Nearly eighteen hundred years ago
+the life of a Roman citizen in Palestine was in danger from mob
+violence. That pagan government threw around him a wall of living clay,
+consisting of four hundred and seventy men, when more than forty Jews
+had bound themselves with an oath that they would neither eat nor drink
+until they had taken the life of the Apostle Paul. Does not true
+patriotism demand that citizenship should be as much protected in
+Christian America as it was in heathen Rome?"
+
+"I would have our people," said Miss Delany, "more interested in
+politics. Instead of forgetting the past, I would have them hold in
+everlasting remembrance our great deliverance. Hitherto we have never
+had a country with tender, precious memories to fill our eyes with
+tears, or glad reminiscences to thrill our hearts with pride and joy. We
+have been aliens and outcasts in the land of our birth. But I want my
+pupils to do all in their power to make this country worthy of their
+deepest devotion and loftiest patriotism. I want them to feel that its
+glory is their glory, its dishonor their shame."
+
+"Our esteemed friend, Mrs. Watson," said Iola, "sends regrets that she
+cannot come, but has kindly favored us with a poem, called the "Rallying
+Cry." In her letter she says that, although she is no longer young, she
+feels that in the conflict for the right there's room for young as well
+as old. She hopes that we will here unite the enthusiasm of youth with
+the experience of age, and that we will have a pleasant and profitable
+conference. Is it your pleasure that the poem be read at this stage of
+our proceedings, or later on?"
+
+"Let us have it now," answered Harry, "and I move that Miss Delany be
+chosen to lend to the poem the charm of her voice."
+
+"I second the motion," said Iola, smiling, and handing the poem to Miss
+Delany.
+
+Miss Delany took the poem and read it with fine effect. The spirit of
+the poem had entered her soul.
+
+              A RALLYING CRY.
+
+    Oh, children of the tropics,
+           Amid our pain and wrong
+    Have you no other mission
+           Than music, dance, and song?
+
+    When through the weary ages
+           Our dripping tears still fall,
+    Is this a time to dally
+           With pleasure's silken thrall?
+
+    Go, muffle all your viols;
+           As heroes learn to stand,
+    With faith in God's great justice
+           Nerve every heart and hand.
+
+    Dream not of ease nor pleasure,
+           Nor honor, wealth, nor fame,
+    Till from the dust you've lifted
+           Our long-dishonored name;
+
+    And crowned that name with glory
+           By deeds of holy worth,
+    To shine with light emblazoned,
+           The noblest name on earth.
+
+    Count life a dismal failure,
+           Unblessing and unblest,
+    That seeks 'mid ease inglorious
+           For pleasure or for rest.
+
+    With courage, strength, and valor
+           Your lives and actions brace;
+    Shrink not from toil or hardship,
+           And dangers bravely face.
+
+    Engrave upon your banners,
+           In words of golden light,
+    That honor, truth, and justice
+           Are more than godless might.
+
+    Above earth's pain and sorrow
+           Christ's dying face I see;
+    I hear the cry of anguish:--
+           "Why hast thou forsaken me?"
+
+    In the pallor of that anguish
+           I see the only light,
+    To flood with peace and gladness
+           Earth's sorrow, pain, and night.
+
+    Arrayed in Christly armor
+           'Gainst error, crime, and sin,
+    The victory can't be doubtful,
+           For God is sure to win.
+
+The next paper was by Miss Iola Leroy, on the "Education of Mothers."
+
+"I agree," said Rev. Eustace, of St. Mary's parish, "with the paper. The
+great need of the race is enlightened mothers."
+
+"And enlightened fathers, too," added Miss Delany, quickly. "If there is
+anything I chafe to see it is a strong, hearty man shirking his burdens,
+putting them on the shoulders of his wife, and taking life easy for
+himself."
+
+"I always pity such mothers," interposed Iola, tenderly.
+
+"I think," said Miss Delany, with a flash in her eye and a ring of
+decision in her voice, "that such men ought to be drummed out of town!"
+As she spoke, there was an expression which seemed to say, "And I would
+like to help do it!"
+
+Harry smiled, and gave her a quick glance of admiration.
+
+"I do not think," said Mrs. Stillman, "that we can begin too early to
+teach our boys to be manly and self-respecting, and our girls to be
+useful and self-reliant."
+
+"You know," said Mrs. Leroy, "that after the war we were thrown upon the
+nation a homeless race to be gathered into homes, and a legally
+unmarried race to be taught the sacredness of the marriage relation. We
+must instill into our young people that the true strength of a race
+means purity in women and uprightness in men; who can say, with Sir
+Galahad:--
+
+    'My strength is the strength of ten,
+       Because my heart is pure.'
+
+And where this is wanting neither wealth nor culture can make up the
+deficiency."
+
+"There is a field of Christian endeavor which lies between the
+school-house and the pulpit, which needs the hand of a woman more in
+private than in public," said Miss Delany.
+
+"Yes, I have often felt the need of such work in my own parish. We need
+a union of women with the warmest hearts and clearest brains to help in
+the moral education of the race," said Rev. Eustace.
+
+"Yes," said Iola, "if we would have the prisons empty we must make the
+homes more attractive."
+
+"In civilized society," replied Dr. Latimer, "there must be restraint
+either within or without. If parents fail to teach restraint within,
+society has her check-reins without in the form of chain-gangs, prisons,
+and the gallows."
+
+The closing paper was on the "Moral Progress of the Race," by Hon.
+Dugdale. He said: "The moral progress of the race was not all he could
+desire, yet he could not help feeling that, compared with other races,
+the outlook was not hopeless. I am so sorry to see, however, that in
+some States there is an undue proportion of colored people in prisons."
+
+"I think," answered Professor Langhorne, of Georgia, "that this is
+owing to a partial administration of law in meting out punishment to
+colored offenders. I know red-handed murderers who walk in this Republic
+unwhipped of justice, and I have seen a colored woman sentenced to
+prison for weeks for stealing twenty-five cents. I knew a colored girl
+who was executed for murder when only a child in years. And it was
+through the intervention of a friend of mine, one of the bravest young
+men of the South, that a boy of fifteen was saved from the gallows."
+
+"When I look," said Mr. Forest, "at the slow growth of modern
+civilization--the ages which have been consumed in reaching our present
+altitude, and see how we have outgrown slavery, feudalism, and religious
+persecutions, I cannot despair of the future of the race."
+
+"Just now," said Dr. Latimer, "we have the fearful grinding and friction
+which comes in the course of an adjustment of the new machinery of
+freedom in the old ruts of slavery. But I am optimistic enough to
+believe that there will yet be a far higher and better Christian
+civilization than our country has ever known."
+
+"And in that civilization I believe the negro is to be an important
+factor," said Rev. Cantnor.
+
+"I believe it also," said Miss Delany, hopefully, "and this thought has
+been a blessed inspiration to my life. When I come in contact with
+Christless prejudices, I feel that my life is too much a part of the
+Divine plan, and invested with too much intrinsic worth, for me to be
+the least humiliated by indignities that beggarly souls can inflict. I
+feel more pitiful than resentful to those who do not know how much they
+miss by living mean, ignoble lives."
+
+"My heart," said Iola, "is full of hope for the future. Pain and
+suffering are the crucibles out of which come gold more fine than the
+pavements of heaven, and gems more precious than the foundations of the
+Holy City."
+
+"If," said Mrs. Leroy, "pain and suffering are factors in human
+development, surely we have not been counted too worthless to suffer."
+
+"And is there," continued Iola, "a path which we have trodden in this
+country, unless it be the path of sin, into which Jesus Christ has not
+put His feet and left it luminous with the light of His steps? Has the
+negro been poor and homeless? The birds of the air had nests and the
+foxes had holes, but the Son of man had not where to lay His head. Has
+our name been a synonym for contempt? 'He shall be called a Nazarene.'
+Have we been despised and trodden under foot? Christ was despised and
+rejected of men. Have we been ignorant and unlearned? It was said of
+Jesus Christ, 'How knoweth this man letters, never having learned?' Have
+we been beaten and bruised in the prison-house of bondage? 'They took
+Jesus and scourged Him.' Have we been slaughtered, our bones scattered
+at the graves' mouth? He was spit upon by the mob, smitten and mocked by
+the rabble, and died as died Rome's meanest criminal slave. To-day that
+cross of shame is a throne of power. Those robes of scorn have changed
+to habiliments of light, and that crown of mockery to a diadem of glory.
+And never, while the agony of Gethsemane and the sufferings of Calvary
+have their hold upon my heart, will I recognize any religion as His
+which despises the least of His brethren."
+
+As Iola finished, there was a ring of triumph in her voice, as if she
+were reviewing a path she had trodden with bleeding feet, and seen it
+change to lines of living light. Her soul seemed to be flashing through
+the rare loveliness of her face and etherealizing its beauty.
+
+Every one was spell-bound. Dr. Latimer was entranced, and, turning to
+Hon. Dugdale, said, in a low voice and with deep-drawn breath, "She is
+angelic!"
+
+Hon. Dugdale turned, gave a questioning look, then replied, "She is
+strangely beautiful! Do you know her?"
+
+"Yes; I have met her several times. I accompanied her here to-night. The
+tones of her voice are like benedictions of peace; her words a call to
+higher service and nobler life."
+
+Just then Rev. Carmicle was announced. He had been on a Southern tour,
+and had just returned.
+
+"Oh, Doctor," exclaimed Mrs. Stillman, "I am delighted to see you. We
+were about to adjourn, but we will postpone action to hear from you."
+
+"Thank you," replied Rev. Carmicle. "I have not the cue to the meeting,
+and will listen while I take breath."
+
+"Pardon me," answered Mrs. Stillman. "I should have been more thoughtful
+than to press so welcome a guest into service before I had given him
+time for rest and refreshment; but if the courtesy failed on my lips it
+did not fail in my heart. I wanted our young folks to see one of our
+thinkers who had won distinction before the war."
+
+"My dear friend," said Rev. Carmicle, smiling, "some of these young
+folks will look on me as a back number. You know the cry has already
+gone forth, 'Young men to the front.'"
+
+"But we need old men for counsel," interposed Mr. Forest, of New York.
+
+"Of course," said Rev. Carmicle, "we older men would rather retire
+gracefully than be relegated or hustled to a back seat. But I am pleased
+to see doors open to you which were closed to us, and opportunities
+which were denied us embraced by you."
+
+"How," asked Hon. Dugdale, "do you feel in reference to our people's
+condition in the South?"
+
+"Very hopeful, although at times I cannot help feeling anxious about
+their future. I was delighted with my visits to various institutions of
+learning, and surprised at the desire manifested among the young people
+to obtain an education. Where toil-worn mothers bent beneath their heavy
+burdens their more favored daughters are enjoying the privileges of
+education. Young people are making recitations in Greek and Latin where
+it was once a crime to teach their parents to read. I also became
+acquainted with colored professors and presidents of colleges. Saw young
+ladies who had graduated as doctors. Comfortable homes have succeeded
+old cabins of slavery. Vast crops have been raised by free labor. I read
+with interest and pleasure a number of papers edited by colored men. I
+saw it estimated that two millions of our people had learned to read,
+and I feel deeply grateful to the people who have supplied us with
+teachers who have stood their ground so nobly among our people."
+
+"But," asked Mr. Forest, "you expressed fears about the future of our
+race. From whence do your fears arise?"
+
+"From the unfortunate conditions which slavery has entailed upon that
+section of our country. I dread the results of that racial feeling which
+ever and anon breaks out into restlessness and crime. Also, I am
+concerned about the lack of home training for those for whom the
+discipline of the plantation has been exchanged for the penalties of
+prisons and chain-gangs. I am sorry to see numbers of our young men
+growing away from the influence of the church and drifting into prisons.
+I also fear that in some sections, as colored men increase in wealth and
+intelligence, there will be an increase of race rivalry and jealousy. It
+is said that savages, by putting their ears to the ground, can hear a
+far-off tread. So, to-day, I fear that there are savage elements in our
+civilization which hear the advancing tread of the negro and would
+retard his coming. It is the incarnation of these elements that I dread.
+It is their elimination I do so earnestly desire. Whether it be outgrown
+or not is our unsolved problem. Time alone will tell whether or not the
+virus of slavery and injustice has too fully permeated our Southern
+civilization for a complete recovery. Nations, honey-combed by vice,
+have fallen beneath the weight of their iniquities. Justice is always
+uncompromising in its claims and inexorable in its demands. The laws of
+the universe are never repealed to accommodate our follies."
+
+"Surely," said Bishop Tunster, "the negro has a higher mission than that
+of aimlessly drifting through life and patiently waiting for death."
+
+"We may not," answered Rev. Carmicle, "have the same dash, courage, and
+aggressiveness of other races, accustomed to struggle, achievement, and
+dominion, but surely the world needs something better than the results
+of arrogance, aggressiveness, and indomitable power. For the evils of
+society there are no solvents as potent as love and justice, and our
+greatest need is not more wealth and learning, but a religion replete
+with life and glowing with love. Let this be the impelling force in the
+race and it cannot fail to rise in the scale of character and
+condition."
+
+"And," said Dr. Latimer, "instead of narrowing our sympathies to mere
+racial questions, let us broaden them to humanity's wider issues."
+
+"Let us," replied Rev. Carmicle, "pass it along the lines, that to be
+willfully ignorant is to be shamefully criminal. Let us teach our people
+not to love pleasure or to fear death, but to learn the true value of
+life, and to do their part to eliminate the paganism of caste from our
+holy religion and the lawlessness of savagery from our civilization."
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+"How did you enjoy the evening, Marie?" asked Robert, as they walked
+homeward.
+
+"I was interested and deeply pleased," answered Marie.
+
+"I," said Robert, "was thinking of the wonderful changes that
+have come to us since the war. When I sat in those well-lighted,
+beautifully-furnished rooms, I was thinking of the meetings we used to
+have in by-gone days. How we used to go by stealth into lonely woods and
+gloomy swamps, to tell of our hopes and fears, sorrows and trials. I
+hope that we will have many more of these gatherings. Let us have the
+next one here."
+
+"I am sure," said Marie, "I would gladly welcome such a conference at
+any time. I think such meetings would be so helpful to our young
+people."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXI.
+
+
+DAWNING AFFECTIONS.
+
+"Doctor," said Iola, as they walked home from the _conversazione_, "I
+wish I could do something more for our people than I am doing. I taught
+in the South till failing health compelled me to change my employment.
+But, now that I am well and strong, I would like to do something of
+lasting service for the race."
+
+"Why not," asked Dr. Latimer, "write a good, strong book which would be
+helpful to them? I think there is an amount of dormant talent among us,
+and a large field from which to gather materials for such a book."
+
+"I would do it, willingly, if I could; but one needs both leisure and
+money to make a successful book. There is material among us for the
+broadest comedies and the deepest tragedies, but, besides money and
+leisure, it needs patience, perseverance, courage, and the hand of an
+artist to weave it into the literature of the country."
+
+"Miss Leroy, you have a large and rich experience; you possess a vivid
+imagination and glowing fancy. Write, out of the fullness of your heart,
+a book to inspire men and women with a deeper sense of justice and
+humanity."
+
+"Doctor," replied Iola, "I would do it if I could, not for the money it
+might bring, but for the good it might do. But who believes any good can
+come out of the black Nazareth?"
+
+"Miss Leroy, out of the race must come its own thinkers and writers.
+Authors belonging to the white race have written good racial books, for
+which I am deeply grateful, but it seems to be almost impossible for a
+white man to put himself completely in our place. No man can feel the
+iron which enters another man's soul."
+
+"Well, Doctor, when I write a book I shall take you for the hero of my
+story."
+
+"Why, what have I done," asked Dr. Latimer, in a surprised tone, "that
+you should impale me on your pen?"
+
+"You have done nobly," answered Iola, "in refusing your grandmother's
+offer."
+
+"I only did my duty," he modestly replied.
+
+"But," said Iola, "when others are trying to slip out from the race and
+pass into the white basis, I cannot help admiring one who acts as if he
+felt that the weaker the race is the closer he would cling to it."
+
+"My mother," replied Dr. Latimer, "faithful and true, belongs to that
+race. Where else should I be? But I know a young lady who could have
+cast her lot with the favored race, yet chose to take her place with the
+freed people, as their teacher, friend, and adviser. This young lady was
+alone in the world. She had been fearfully wronged, and to her stricken
+heart came a brilliant offer of love, home, and social position. But she
+bound her heart to the mast of duty, closed her ears to the syren song,
+and could not be lured from her purpose."
+
+A startled look stole over Iola's face, and, lifting her eyes to his,
+she faltered:--
+
+"Do you know her?"
+
+"Yes, I know her and admire her; and she ought to be made the subject
+of a soul-inspiring story. Do you know of whom I speak?"
+
+"How should I, Doctor? I am sure you have not made me your confidante,"
+she responded, demurely; then she quickly turned and tripped up the
+steps of her home, which she had just reached.
+
+After this conversation Dr. Latimer became a frequent visitor at Iola's
+home, and a firm friend of her brother. Harry was at that age when, for
+the young and inexperienced, vice puts on her fairest guise and most
+seductive smiles. Dr. Latimer's wider knowledge and larger experience
+made his friendship for Harry very valuable, and the service he rendered
+him made him a favorite and ever-welcome guest in the family.
+
+"Are you all alone," asked Robert, one night, as he entered the cosy
+little parlor where Iola sat reading. "Where are the rest of the folks?"
+
+"Mamma and grandma have gone to bed," answered Iola. "Harry and Lucille
+are at the concert. They are passionately fond of music, and find
+facilities here that they do not have in the South. They wouldn't go to
+hear a seraph where they must take a negro seat. I was too tired to go.
+Besides, 'two's company and three's a crowd,'" she added, significantly.
+
+"I reckon you struck the nail on the head that time," said Robert,
+laughing. "But you have not been alone all the time. Just as I reached
+the corner I saw Dr. Latimer leaving the door. I see he still continues
+his visits. Who is his patient now?"
+
+"Oh, Uncle Robert," said Iola, smiling and flushing, "he is out with
+Harry and Lucille part of the time, and drops in now and then to see us
+all."
+
+"Well," said Robert, "I suppose the case is now an affair of the heart.
+But I cannot blame him for it," he added, looking fondly on the
+beautiful face of his niece, which sorrow had touched only to chisel
+into more loveliness. "How do you like him?"
+
+"I must have within me," answered Iola, with unaffected truthfulness, "a
+large amount of hero worship. The characters of the Old Testament I most
+admire are Moses and Nehemiah. They were willing to put aside their own
+advantages for their race and country. Dr. Latimer comes up to my ideal
+of a high, heroic manhood."
+
+"I think," answered Robert, smiling archly, "he would be delighted to
+hear your opinion of him."
+
+"I tell him," continued Iola, "that he belongs to the days of chivalry.
+But he smiles and says, 'he only belongs to the days of hard-pan
+service.'"
+
+"Some one," said Robert, "was saying to-day that he stood in his own
+light when he refused his grandmother's offer to receive him as her
+son."
+
+"I think," said Iola, "it was the grandest hour of his life when he made
+that decision. I have admired him ever since I heard his story."
+
+"But, Iola, think of the advantages he set aside. It was no sacrifice
+for me to remain colored, with my lack of education and race sympathies,
+but Dr. Latimer had doors open to him as a white man which are forever
+closed to a colored man. To be born white in this country is to be born
+to an inheritance of privileges, to hold in your hands the keys that
+open before you the doors of every occupation, advantage, opportunity,
+and achievement."
+
+"I know that, uncle," answered Iola; "but even these advantages are too
+dearly bought if they mean loss of honor, true manliness, and self
+respect. He could not have retained these had he ignored his mother and
+lived under a veil of concealment, constantly haunted by a dread of
+detection. The gain would not have been worth the cost. It were better
+that he should walk the ruggedest paths of life a true man than tread
+the softest carpets a moral cripple."
+
+"I am afraid," said Robert, laying his hand caressingly upon her head,
+"that we are destined to lose the light of our home."
+
+"Oh, uncle, how you talk! I never dreamed of what you are thinking,"
+answered Iola, half reproachfully.
+
+"And how," asked Robert, "do you know what I am thinking about?"
+
+"My dear uncle, I'm not blind."
+
+"Neither am I," replied Robert, significantly, as he left the room.
+
+Iola's admiration for Dr. Latimer was not a one-sided affair. Day after
+day she was filling a larger place in his heart. The touch of her hand
+thrilled him with emotion. Her lightest words were an entrancing melody
+to his ear. Her noblest sentiments found a response in his heart. In
+their desire to help the race their hearts beat in loving unison. One
+grand and noble purpose was giving tone and color to their lives and
+strengthening the bonds of affection between them.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXII.
+
+
+WOOING AND WEDDING.
+
+Harry's vacation had been very pleasant. Miss Delany, with her fine
+conversational powers and ready wit, had added much to his enjoyment.
+Robert had given his mother the pleasantest room in the house, and in
+the evening the family would gather around her, tell her the news of the
+day, read to her from the Bible, join with her in thanksgiving for
+mercies received and in prayer for protection through the night. Harry
+was very grateful to Dr. Latimer for the kindly interest he had shown in
+accompanying Miss Delany and himself to places of interest and
+amusement. He was grateful, too, that in the city of P---- doors were
+open to them which were barred against them in the South.
+
+The bright, beautiful days of summer were gliding into autumn, with its
+glorious wealth of foliage, and the time was approaching for the
+departure of Harry and Miss Delany to their respective schools, when Dr.
+Latimer received several letters from North Carolina, urging him to come
+South, as physicians were greatly needed there. Although his practice
+was lucrative in the city of P----, he resolved he would go where his
+services were most needed.
+
+A few evenings before he started he called at the house, and made an
+engagement to drive Iola to the park.
+
+At the time appointed he drove up to the door in his fine equipage.
+Iola stepped gracefully in and sat quietly by his side to enjoy the
+loveliness of the scenery and the gorgeous grandeur of the setting sun.
+
+"I expect to go South," said Dr. Latimer, as he drove slowly along.
+
+"Ah, indeed," said Iola, assuming an air of interest, while a shadow
+flitted over her face. "Where do you expect to pitch your tent?"
+
+"In the city of C----, North Carolina," he answered.
+
+"Oh, I wish," she exclaimed, "that you were going to Georgia, where you
+could take care of that high-spirited brother of mine."
+
+"I suppose if he were to hear you he would laugh, and say that he could
+take care of himself. But I know a better plan than that."
+
+"What is it?" asked Iola, innocently.
+
+"That you will commit yourself, instead of your brother, to my care."
+
+"Oh, dear," replied Iola, drawing a long breath. "What would mamma say?"
+
+"That she would willingly resign you, I hope."
+
+"And what would grandma and Uncle Robert say?" again asked Iola.
+
+"That they would cheerfully acquiesce. Now, what would I say if they all
+consent?"
+
+"I don't know," modestly responded Iola.
+
+"Well," replied Dr. Latimer, "I would say:--
+
+    "Could deeds my love discover,
+          Could valor gain thy charms,
+     To prove myself thy lover
+          I'd face a world in arms."
+
+"And prove a good soldier," added Iola, smiling, "when there is no
+battle to fight."
+
+"Iola, I am in earnest," said Dr. Latimer, passionately. "In the work to
+which I am devoted every burden will be lighter, every path smoother, if
+brightened and blessed with your companionship."
+
+A sober expression swept over Iola's face, and, dropping her eyes, she
+said: "I must have time to think."
+
+Quietly they rode along the river bank until Dr. Latimer broke the
+silence by saying:--
+
+"Miss Iola, I think that you brood too much over the condition of our
+people."
+
+"Perhaps I do," she replied, "but they never burn a man in the South
+that they do not kindle a fire around my soul."
+
+"I am afraid," replied Dr. Latimer, "that you will grow morbid and
+nervous. Most of our people take life easily--why shouldn't you?"
+
+"Because," she answered, "I can see breakers ahead which they do not."
+
+"Oh, give yourself no uneasiness. They will catch the fret and fever of
+the nineteenth century soon enough. I have heard several of our
+ministers say that it is chiefly men of disreputable characters who are
+made the subjects of violence and lynch-law."
+
+"Suppose it is so," responded Iola, feelingly. "If these men believe in
+eternal punishment they ought to feel a greater concern for the wretched
+sinner who is hurried out of time with all his sins upon his head, than
+for the godly man who passes through violence to endless rest."
+
+"That is true; and I am not counseling you to be selfish; but, Miss
+Iola, had you not better look out for yourself?"
+
+"Thank you, Doctor, I am feeling quite well."
+
+"I know it, but your devotion to study and work is too intense," he
+replied.
+
+"I am preparing to teach, and must spend my leisure time in study. Mr.
+Cloten is an excellent employer, and treats his employes as if they had
+hearts as well as hands. But to be an expert accountant is not the best
+use to which I can put my life."
+
+"As a teacher you will need strong health and calm nerves. You had
+better let me prescribe for you. You need," he added, with a merry
+twinkle in his eyes, "change of air, change of scene, and change of
+name."
+
+"Well, Doctor," said Iola, laughing, "that is the newest nostrum out.
+Had you not better apply for a patent?"
+
+"Oh," replied Dr. Latimer, with affected gravity, "you know you must
+have unlimited faith in your physician."
+
+"So you wish me to try the faith cure?" asked Iola, laughing.
+
+"Yes, faith in me," responded Dr. Latimer, seriously.
+
+"Oh, here we are at home!" exclaimed Iola. "This has been a glorious
+evening, Doctor. I am indebted to you for a great pleasure. I am
+extremely grateful."
+
+"You are perfectly welcome," replied Dr. Latimer. "The pleasure has been
+mutual, I assure you."
+
+"Will you not come in?" asked Iola.
+
+Tying his horse, he accompanied Iola into the parlor. Seating himself
+near her, he poured into her ears words eloquent with love and
+tenderness.
+
+"Iola," he said, "I am not an adept in courtly phrases. I am a plain
+man, who believes in love and truth. In asking you to share my lot, I am
+not inviting you to a life of ease and luxury, for year after year I may
+have to struggle to keep the wolf from the door, but your presence would
+make my home one of the brightest spots on earth, and one of the fairest
+types of heaven. Am I presumptuous in hoping that your love will become
+the crowning joy of my life?"
+
+His words were more than a tender strain wooing her to love and
+happiness, they were a clarion call to a life of high and holy worth, a
+call which found a response in her heart. Her hand lay limp in his. She
+did not withdraw it, but, raising her lustrous eyes to his, she softly
+answered: "Frank, I love you."
+
+After he had gone, Iola sat by the window, gazing at the splendid stars,
+her heart quietly throbbing with a delicious sense of joy and love. She
+had admired Dr. Gresham and, had there been no barrier in her way, she
+might have learned to love him; but Dr. Latimer had grown irresistibly
+upon her heart. There were depths in her nature that Dr. Gresham had
+never fathomed; aspirations in her soul with which he had never mingled.
+But as the waves leap up to the strand, so her soul went out to Dr.
+Latimer. Between their lives were no impeding barriers, no inclination
+impelling one way and duty compelling another. Kindred hopes and tastes
+had knit their hearts; grand and noble purposes were lighting up their
+lives; and they esteemed it a blessed privilege to stand on the
+threshold of a new era and labor for those who had passed from the old
+oligarchy of slavery into the new commonwealth of freedom.
+
+On the next evening, Dr. Latimer rang the bell and was answered by
+Harry, who ushered him into the parlor, and then came back to the
+sitting-room, saying, "Iola, Dr. Latimer has called to see you."
+
+"Has he?" answered Iola, a glad light coming into her eyes. "Come,
+Lucille, let us go into the parlor."
+
+"Oh, no," interposed Harry, shrugging his shoulders and catching
+Lucille's hand. "He didn't ask for you. When we went to the concert we
+were told three's a crowd. And I say one good turn deserves another."
+
+"Oh, Harry, you are so full of nonsense. Let Lucille go!" said Iola.
+
+"Indeed I will not. I want to have a good time as well as you," said
+Harry.
+
+"Oh, you're the most nonsensical man I know," interposed Miss Delany.
+Yet she stayed with Harry.
+
+"You're looking very bright and happy," said Dr. Latimer to Iola, as she
+entered.
+
+"My ride in the park was so refreshing! I enjoyed it so much! The day
+was so lovely, the air delicious, the birds sang so sweetly, and the
+sunset was so magnificent."
+
+"I am glad of it. Why, Iola, your home is so happy your heart should be
+as light as a school-girl's."
+
+"Doctor," she replied, "I must be prematurely old. I have scarcely known
+what it is to be light-hearted since my father's death."
+
+"I know it, darling," he answered, seating himself beside her, and
+drawing her to him. "You have been tried in the fire, but are you not
+better for the crucial test?"
+
+"Doctor," she replied, "as we rode along yesterday, mingling with the
+sunshine of the present came the shadows of the past. I was thinking of
+the bright, joyous days of my girlhood, when I defended slavery, and of
+how the cup that I would have pressed to the lips of others was forced
+to my own. Yet, in looking over the mournful past, I would not change
+the Iola of then for the Iola of now."
+
+"Yes," responded Dr. Latimer, musingly,
+
+    "'Darkness shows us worlds of light
+        We never saw by day.'"
+
+"Oh, Doctor, you cannot conceive what it must have been to be hurled
+from a home of love and light into the dark abyss of slavery; to be
+compelled to take your place among a people you have learned to look
+upon as inferiors and social outcasts; to be in the power of men whose
+presence would fill you with horror and loathing, and to know that there
+is no earthly power to protect you from the highest insults which brutal
+cowardice could shower upon you. I am so glad that no other woman of my
+race will suffer as I have done."
+
+The flush deepened on her face, a mournful splendor beamed from her
+beautiful eyes, into which the tears had slowly gathered.
+
+"Darling," he said, his voice vibrating with mingled feelings of
+tenderness and resentment, "you must forget the sad past. You are like a
+tender lamb snatched from the jaws of a hungry wolf, but who still needs
+protecting, loving care. But it must have been terrible," he added, in a
+painful tone.
+
+"It was indeed! For awhile I was like one dazed. I tried to pray, but
+the heavens seemed brass over my head. I was wild with agony, and had I
+not been placed under conditions which roused all the resistance of my
+soul, I would have lost my reason."
+
+"Was it not a mistake to have kept you ignorant of your colored blood?"
+
+"It was the great mistake of my father's life, but dear papa knew
+something of the cruel, crushing power of caste; and he tried to shield
+us from it."
+
+"Yes, yes," replied Dr. Latimer, thoughtfully, "in trying to shield you
+from pain he plunged you into deeper suffering."
+
+"I never blame him, because I know he did it for the best. Had he lived
+he would have taken us to France, where I should have had a life of
+careless ease and pleasure. But now my life has a much grander
+significance than it would have had under such conditions. Fearful as
+the awakening was, it was better than to have slept through life."
+
+"Best for you and best for me," said Dr. Latimer. "There are souls that
+never awaken; but if they miss the deepest pain they also lose the
+highest joy."
+
+Dr. Latimer went South, after his engagement, and through his medical
+skill and agreeable manners became very successful in his practice. In
+the following summer, he built a cosy home for the reception of his
+bride, and came North, where, with Harry and Miss Delany as attendants,
+he was married to Iola, amid a pleasant gathering of friends, by Rev.
+Carmicle.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XXXIII.
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+It was late in the summer when Dr. Latimer and his bride reached their
+home in North Carolina. Over the cottage porch were morning-glories to
+greet the first flushes of the rising day, and roses and jasmines to
+distill their fragrance on the evening air. Aunt Linda, who had been
+apprised of their coming, was patiently awaiting their arrival, and
+Uncle Daniel was pleased to know that "dat sweet young lady who had sich
+putty manners war comin' to lib wid dem."
+
+As soon as they arrived, Aunt Linda rushed up to Iola, folded her in her
+arms, and joyfully exclaimed: "How'dy, honey! I'se so glad you's come. I
+seed it in a vision dat somebody fair war comin' to help us. An' wen I
+yered it war you, I larffed and jist rolled ober, and larffed and jist
+gib up."
+
+"But, Aunt Linda, I am not very fair," replied Mrs. Latimer.
+
+"Well, chile, you's fair to me. How's all yore folks in de up kentry?"
+
+"All well. I expect them down soon to live here."
+
+"What, Har'yet, and Robby, an' yer ma? Oh, dat is too good. I allers
+said Robby had san' in his craw, and war born for good luck. He war a
+mighty nice boy. Har'yet's in clover now. Well, ebery dorg has its day,
+and de cat has Sunday. I allers tole Har'yet ter keep a stiff upper lip;
+dat it war a long road dat had no turn."
+
+Dr. Latimer was much gratified by the tender care Aunt Linda bestowed
+on Iola.
+
+"I ain't goin' to let her do nuffin till she gits seasoned. She looks as
+sweet as a peach. I allers wanted some nice lady to come down yere and
+larn our gals some sense. I can't read myself, but I likes ter yere dem
+dat can."
+
+"Well, Aunt Linda, I am going to teach in the Sunday-school, help in the
+church, hold mothers' meetings to help these boys and girls to grow up
+to be good men and women. Won't you get a pair of spectacles and learn
+to read?"
+
+"Oh, yer can't git dat book froo my head, no way you fix it. I knows
+nuff to git to hebben, and dat's all I wants to know." Aunt Linda was
+kind and obliging, but there was one place where she drew the line, and
+that was at learning to read.
+
+Harry and Miss Delany accompanied Iola as far as her new home, and
+remained several days. The evening before their departure, Harry took
+Miss Delany a drive of several miles through the pine barrens.
+
+"This thing is getting very monotonous," Harry broke out, when they had
+gone some distance.
+
+"Oh, I enjoy it!" replied Miss Delany. "These stately pines look so
+grand and solemn, they remind me of a procession of hooded monks."
+
+"What in the world are you talking about, Lucille?" asked Harry, looking
+puzzled.
+
+"About those pine-trees," replied Miss Delany, in a tone of surprise.
+
+"Pshaw, I wasn't thinking about them. I'm thinking about Iola and
+Frank."
+
+"What about them?" asked Lucille.
+
+"Why, when I was in P----, Dr. Latimer used to be first-rate company,
+but now it is nothing but what Iola wants, and what Iola says, and what
+Iola likes. I don't believe that there is a subject I could name to him,
+from spinning a top to circumnavigating the globe, that he wouldn't
+somehow contrive to bring Iola in. And I don't believe you could talk
+ten minutes to Iola on any subject, from dressing a doll to the latest
+discovery in science, that she wouldn't manage to lug in Frank."
+
+"Oh, you absurd creature!" responded Lucille, "this is their honeymoon,
+and they are deeply in love with each other. Wait till you get in love
+with some one."
+
+"I am in love now," replied Harry, with a serious air.
+
+"With whom?" asked Lucille, archly.
+
+"With you," answered Harry, trying to take her hand.
+
+"Oh, Harry!" she exclaimed, playfully resisting. "Don't be so
+nonsensical! Don't you think the bride looked lovely, with that dress of
+spotless white and with those orange blossoms in her hair?"
+
+"Yes, she did; that's a fact," responded Harry. "But, Lucille, I think
+there is a great deal of misplaced sentiment at weddings," he added,
+more seriously.
+
+"How so?"
+
+"Oh, here are a couple just married, and who are as happy as happy can
+be; and people will crowd around them wishing much joy; but who thinks
+of wishing joy to the forlorn old bachelors and restless old maids?"
+
+"Well, Harry, if you want people to wish you much happiness, why don't
+you do as the doctor has done, get yourself a wife?"
+
+"I will," he replied, soberly, "when you say so."
+
+"Oh, Harry, don't be so absurd."
+
+"Indeed there isn't a bit of absurdity about what I say. I am in
+earnest." There was something in the expression of Harry's face and the
+tone of his voice which arrested the banter on Lucille's lips.
+
+"I think it was Charles Lamb," replied Lucille, "who once said that
+school-teachers are uncomfortable people, and, Harry, I would not like
+to make you uncomfortable by marrying you."
+
+"You will make me uncomfortable by not marrying me."
+
+"But," replied Lucille, "your mother may not prefer me for a daughter.
+You know, Harry, complexional prejudices are not confined to white
+people."
+
+"My mother," replied Harry, with an air of confidence, "is too noble to
+indulge in such sentiments."
+
+"And Iola, would she be satisfied?"
+
+"Why, it would add to her satisfaction. She is not one who can't be
+white and won't be black."
+
+"Well, then," replied Lucille, "I will take the question of your comfort
+into consideration."
+
+The above promise was thoughtfully remembered by Lucille till a bridal
+ring and happy marriage were the result.
+
+Soon after Iola had settled in C---- she quietly took her place in the
+Sunday-school as a teacher, and in the church as a helper. She was
+welcomed by the young pastor, who found in her a strong and faithful
+ally. Together they planned meetings for the especial benefit of mothers
+and children. When the dens of vice are spreading their snares for the
+feet of the tempted and inexperienced her doors are freely opened for
+the instruction of the children before their feet have wandered and gone
+far astray. She has no carpets too fine for the tread of their little
+feet. She thinks it is better to have stains on her carpet than stains
+on their souls through any neglect of hers. In lowly homes and
+windowless cabins her visits are always welcome. Little children love
+her. Old age turns to her for comfort, young girls for guidance, and
+mothers for counsel. Her life is full of blessedness.
+
+Doctor Latimer by his kindness and skill has won the name of the "Good
+Doctor." But he is more than a successful doctor; he is a true patriot
+and a good citizen. Honest, just, and discriminating, he endeavors by
+precept and example to instill into the minds of others sentiments of
+good citizenship. He is a leader in every reform movement for the
+benefit of the community; but his patriotism is not confined to race
+lines. "The world is his country, and mankind his countrymen." While he
+abhors their deeds of violence, he pities the short-sighted and besotted
+men who seem madly intent upon laying magazines of powder under the
+cradles of unborn generations. He has great faith in the possibilities
+of the negro, and believes that, enlightened and Christianized, he will
+sink the old animosities of slavery into the new community of interests
+arising from freedom; and that his influence upon the South will be as
+the influence of the sun upon the earth. As when the sun passes from
+Capricorn to Cancer, beauty, greenness, and harmony spring up in his
+path, so he hopes that the future career of the negro will be a greater
+influence for freedom and social advancement than it was in the days of
+yore for slavery and its inferior civilization.
+
+Harry and Lucille are at the head of a large and flourishing school.
+Lucille gives her ripening experience to her chosen work, to which she
+was too devoted to resign. And through the school they are lifting up
+the homes of the people. Some have pitied, others blamed, Harry for
+casting his lot with the colored people, but he knows that life's
+highest and best advantages do not depend on the color of the skin or
+texture of the hair. He has his reward in the improved condition of his
+pupils and the superb manhood and noble life which he has developed in
+his much needed work.
+
+Uncle Daniel still lingers on the shores of time, a cheery, lovable old
+man, loved and respected by all; a welcome guest in every home. Soon
+after Iola's marriage, Robert sold out his business and moved with his
+mother and sister to North Carolina. He bought a large plantation near
+C----, which he divided into small homesteads, and sold to poor but
+thrifty laborers, and his heart has been gladdened by their increased
+prosperity and progress. He has seen the one-roomed cabins change to
+comfortable cottages, in which cleanliness and order have supplanted the
+prolific causes of disease and death. Kind and generous, he often
+remembers Mrs. Johnson and sends her timely aid.
+
+Marie's pale, spiritual face still bears traces of the beauty which was
+her youthful dower, but its bloom has been succeeded by an air of
+sweetness and dignity. Though frail in health, she is always ready to
+lend a helping hand wherever and whenever she can.
+
+Grandmother Johnson was glad to return South and spend the remnant of
+her days with the remaining friends of her early life. Although feeble,
+she is in full sympathy with her children for the uplifting of the race.
+Marie and her mother are enjoying their aftermath of life, one by
+rendering to others all the service in her power, while the other, with
+her face turned toward the celestial city, is
+
+    "Only waiting till the angels
+      Open wide the mystic gate."
+
+The shadows have been lifted from all their lives; and peace, like
+bright dew, has descended upon their paths. Blessed themselves, their
+lives are a blessing to others.
+
+
+
+
+NOTE.
+
+From threads of fact and fiction I have woven a story whose mission will
+not be in vain if it awaken in the hearts of our countrymen a stronger
+sense of justice and a more Christlike humanity in behalf of those whom
+the fortunes of war threw, homeless, ignorant and poor, upon the
+threshold of a new era. Nor will it be in vain if it inspire the
+children of those upon whose brows God has poured the chrism of that new
+era to determine that they will embrace every opportunity, develop every
+faculty, and use every power God has given them to rise in the scale of
+character and condition, and to add their quota of good citizenship to
+the best welfare of the nation. There are scattered among us materials
+for mournful tragedies and mirth-provoking comedies, which some hand may
+yet bring into the literature of the country, glowing with the fervor of
+the tropics and enriched by the luxuriance of the Orient, and thus add
+to the solution of our unsolved American problem.
+
+The race has not had very long to straighten its hands from the hoe, to
+grasp the pen and wield it as a power for good, and to erect above the
+ruined auction-block and slave-pen institutions of learning, but
+
+    There is light beyond the darkness,
+          Joy beyond the present pain;
+    There is hope in God's great justice
+          And the negro's rising brain.
+    Though the morning seems to linger
+          O'er the hill-tops far away,
+    Yet the shadows bear the promise
+          Of a brighter coming day.
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Iola Leroy, by Frances E.W. Harper
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK IOLA LEROY ***
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