The Freedmen's Book Part 18

"'Wal, Missis, de Lord he persarves his own. Lizy's done gone over the river into 'Hio; as 'markably as if de Lord took her over in a chariot of fire and two hosses.'

"His master, who had followed his wife to the verandah, said, 'Come up here, and tell your mistress what she wants to know.'

"Sam soon appeared at the parlor-door, hat in hand. In answer to their questions, he told his story in lively style. 'Dis yere's a providence, and no mistake,' said Sam, piously rolling up his eyes. 'As Missis has allers been instructin' on us, thar's allers instruments ris up to do de Lord's will. Now if it hadn't been for me to-day, Lizy'd been took a dozen times. Warn't it I started off de hosses, dis yere mornin', and kept 'em chasin' till dinner time? And didn't I car Mas'r Haley five miles out of de road dis evening? else he'd a come up with Lizy, as easy as a dog arter a c.o.o.n. Dese yere's all providences!'

"With as much sternness as he could command under the circ.u.mstances, his master said, 'They are a kind of providences that you'll have to be pretty sparing of, Sam. I allow no such practices with gentlemen on my place.'

"Sam stood with the corners of his mouth lowered, in most penitential style. 'Mas'r's quite right,' said he. 'It was ugly on me; thar's no disputin' that ar; and of course Mas'r and Missis wouldn't encourage no such works. I'm sensible ob dat ar. But a poor n.i.g.g.e.r like me's 'mazin'

tempted to act ugly sometimes, when fellers will cut up such s.h.i.+nes as dat ar Mas'r Haley. He a'n't no gen'l'man no way. Anybody's been raised as I've been can't help a seein' dat ar.'

"'Well, Sam,' said his mistress, 'as you seem to have a proper sense of your errors, you may go now and tell Aunt Chloe she may get you some of that cold ham that was left of dinner to-day. You and Andy must be hungry.'

"'Missis is a heap too good for us,' said Sam, making his bow with alacrity and departing.

"Having done up his piety and humility, to the satisfaction of the parlor, as he trusted, he clapped his palm-leaf on his head with a sort of free-and-easy air, and proceeded to the dominions of Aunt Chloe, with the intention of flouris.h.i.+ng largely in the kitchen."

JOHN BROWN AND THE COLORED CHILD.

BY L. MARIA CHILD.

[When John Brown went from the jail to the gallows, in Charlestown, Virginia, December 2, 1859, he stooped to kiss a little colored child.]

A winter suns.h.i.+ne, still and bright, The Blue Hills bathed with golden light, And earth was smiling to the sky, When calmly he went forth to die.

Infernal pa.s.sions festered there, Where peaceful Nature looked so fair; And fiercely, in the morning sun, Flashed glitt'ring bayonet and gun.

The old man met no friendly eye, When last he looked on earth and sky; But one small child, with timid air, Was gazing on his h.o.a.ry hair.

As that dark brow to his upturned, The tender heart within him yearned; And, fondly stooping o'er her face, He kissed her for her injured race.

The little one she knew not why That kind old man went forth to die; Nor why, 'mid all that pomp and stir, He stooped to give a kiss to _her_.

But Jesus smiled that sight to see, And said, "He did it unto _me_."

The golden harps then sweetly rung, And this the song the angels sung:

"Who loves the poor doth love the Lord; Earth cannot dim thy bright reward: We hover o'er yon gallows high, And wait to bear thee to the sky."

John Brown, on his way to the scaffold, stooped to take up a slave-child. That closing example was the legacy of the dying man to his country. That benediction we must continue and fulfil. In this new order, equality, long postponed, shall become the master-principle of our system, and the very frontispiece of our Const.i.tution.--HON. CHARLES SUMNER.

Christ told me to remember those in bonds as bound with them; to do toward them as I should wish them to do toward me in similar circ.u.mstances. My conscience bade me to do that. Therefore I have no regret for the transaction for which I am condemned. I think I feel as happy as Paul did when he lay in prison. He knew if they killed him it would greatly advance the cause of Christ. That was the reason he rejoiced. On that same ground "I do rejoice, yea, and will rejoice."--JOHN BROWN.

THE AIR OF FREEDOM.

BY FRANCES E. W. HARPER.

[Written at Niagara Falls in 1856.]

I have just returned from Canada. I have gazed for the first time upon free land. Would you believe it? the tears sprang to my eyes, and I wept. It was a glorious sight to gaze, for the first time, on the land where a poor slave, flying from our land of boasted liberty, would in a moment find his fetters broken and his shackles loosed. Whatever he was in the land of Was.h.i.+ngton, in the shadow of Bunker Hill Monument, or even upon Plymouth Rock, _here_ he becomes "a man and a brother."

I had gazed on Harper's Ferry, or rather the Rock at the Ferry, towering up in simple grandeur, with the gentle Potomac gliding peacefully at its feet; and I felt that it was G.o.d's masonry. My soul expanded while gazing on its sublimity. I had heard the ocean singing its wild chorus of sounding waves, and the living chords of my heart thrilled with ecstasy. I have since seen the rainbow-crowned Niagara, girdled with grandeur and robed with glory, chanting the choral hymn of omnipotence; but none of these sights have melted me, as did the first sight of free land.

Towering mountains, lifting their h.o.a.ry summits to catch the first faint flush of day, when the sunbeams kiss the shadows from morning's drowsy face, may expand and exalt your soul; the first view of the ocean may fill you with strange delight; the great, the glorious Niagara may hush your spirit with its ceaseless thunder,--it may charm you with its robe of crested spray, and with its rainbow crown: but the land of freedom has a lesson of deeper significance than foaming waves and towering mountains. It carries the heart back to that heroic struggle in Great Britain for the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves, in which the great heart of the people throbbed for liberty, and the mighty pulse of the nation beat for freedom, till eight hundred thousand men, women, and children in the West Indies arose redeemed from bondage and freed from chains.

EMANc.i.p.aTION IN THE DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA, APRIL 16, 1862.

BY JAMES MADISON BELL.

Unfurl your banners to the breeze!

Let Freedom's tocsin sound amain, Until the islands of the seas Re-echo with the glad refrain!

Columbia's free! Columbia's free!

Her teeming streets, her vine-clad groves, Are sacred now to Liberty, And G.o.d, who every right approves.

Thank G.o.d, the Capital is free!

The slaver's pen, the auction-block, The gory lash of cruelty, No more this nation's pride shall mock; No more, within those ten miles square, Shall men be bought and women sold; Nor infants, sable-hued and fair, Exchanged again for paltry gold.

To-day the Capital is free!

And free those halls where Adams stood To plead for man's humanity, And for a common brotherhood; Where Sumner stood, with ma.s.sive frame, Whose eloquent philosophy Has cl.u.s.tered round his deathless name Bright laurels for eternity;

Where Wilson, Lovejoy, Wade, and Hale, And other lights of equal power, Have stood, like warriors clad in mail, Before the giant of the hour,-- Co-workers in a common cause, Laboring for their country's weal, By just enactments, righteous laws, And burning, eloquent appeal.

To them we owe and gladly bring The grateful tributes of our hearts; And while we live to muse and sing, These in our songs shall claim their parts.

To-day Columbia's air doth seem Much purer than in days agone; And now her mighty heart, I deem, Hath lighter grown by marching on.

THE LAWS OF HEALTH.

BY L. MARIA CHILD.

There are three things peculiarly essential to health,--plenty of fresh water, plenty of pure air, and enough of nouris.h.i.+ng food.