Autobiography of a Female Slave. Martha Griffith Browne
on dat bed, and I hab nursed you as if you war my own child."
I threw my arms around her again, and imprinted kisses upon her rugged brow; for, though her skin was sooty and her face worn with care, I believed that somewhere in a silent corner of her tried heart there was a ray of warm, loving, human feeling.
"Oh, child," she begun, "can you wid yer pretty yallow face kiss an old pitch-black nigger like me?"
"Why, yes, Aunt Polly, and love you too; if your face is dark I am sure your heart is fair."
"Well, I doesn't know 'bout dat, chile; once 'twas far, but I tink all de white man done made it black as my face."
"Oh no, I can't believe that, Aunt Polly," I replied.
"Wal, I always hab said dat if dey would cut my finger and cut a white woman's, dey would find de blood ob de very same color," and the old woman laughed exultingly.
"Yes, but, Aunt Polly, if you were to go before a magistrate with a case to be decided, he would give it against you, no matter how just were your claims."
"To be sartin, de white folks allers gwine to do every ting in favor ob dar own color."
"But, Aunt Polly," interposed I, "there is a God above, who disregards color."
"Sure dare is, and dar we will all ob us git our dues, and den de white folks will roast in de flames ob old Nick."
I saw, from a furtive flash of her eye, that all the malignity and revenge of her outraged nature were becoming excited, and I endeavored to change the conversation.
"Is master getting well?"
"Why, yes, chile, de debbil can't kill him. He is 'termined to live jist as long as dare is a nigger to torment. All de time he was crazy wid de fever, he was fightin' wid de niggers—'pears like he don't dream 'bout nothin' else."
"Does he sit up now?" I asked this question with trepidation, for I really dreaded to see him.
"No, he can't set up none. De doctor say he lost a power o' blood, and he won't let him eat meat or anyting strong, and I tells you, honey, Masser does swar a heap. He wants to smoke his pipe, and to hab his reglar grog, and dey won't gib it to him. It do take Jim and Jake bofe to hold him in de bed, when his tantarums comes on. He fights dem, he calls for de oberseer, he orders dat ebery nigger on de place shall be tuck to de post. I tells you now, I makes haste to git out ob his way. He struck Jake a lick dat kum mighty nigh puttin' out his eye. It's all bunged up now."
"Where did Mr. Somerville go?" I asked.
"Oh, de young gemman dat dey say is a courtin' Miss Jane, he hab gone back to de big town what he kum from; but Lindy say Miss Jane got a great long letter from him, and Lindy say she tink Miss Jane gwine to marry him."
"Well, I belong to Miss Jane; I wonder if she will take me with her to the town."
"Why, yes, chile, she will, for she do believe in niggers. She wants 'em all de time right by her side, a waitin' on her."
This thought set me to speculating. Here, then, was the prospect of another change in my home. The change might be auspicious; but it would take me away from Aunt Polly, and remove me from Miss Bradly's influence; and this I dreaded, for she had planted hopes in my breast, which must blossom, though at a distant season, and I wished to be often in her company, so that I might gain many important items from her.
Aunt Polly, observing me unusually thoughtful, argued that I was sleepy, and insisted upon my returning to bed. In order to avoid further conversation, and preserve, unbroken, the thread of my reflections, I obeyed her.
Throwing myself carelessly upon the rough pallet, I wandered in fancy until leaden-winged sleep overcame me.
CHAPTER VII.
AMY'S NARRATIVE, AND HER PHILOSOPHY OF A FUTURE STATE.
When the golden sun had begun to tinge with light the distant tree-tops, and the young birds to chant their matin hymn, I awoke from my profound sleep. Wearily I moved upon my pillow, for though my slumber had been deep and sweet, yet now, upon awaking, I experienced no refreshment.
Rising up in the bed, and supporting myself upon my elbow, I looked round in quest of Aunt Polly; but then I remembered that she had to be about the breakfast. Amy was sitting on the floor, endeavoring to arrange the clothes on a little toddler, her orphan brother, over whom she exercised a sort of maternal care. She, her two sisters, and infant brother, were the orphans of a woman who had once belonged to a brother of Mr. Peterkin. Their orphanage had not fallen upon them from the ghastly fingers of death, but from the far more cruel and cold mandate of human cupidity. A fair, even liberal price had been offered their owner for their mother, Dilsy, and such a speculation was not to be resigned upon the score of philanthropy. No, the man who would refuse nine hundred dollars for a negro woman, upon the plea that she had three young children and a helpless infant, from whom she must not be separated, would, in Kentucky, be pronounced insane; and I can assure you that, on this subject, the brave Kentuckians had good right to decide, according to their code, that Elijah Peterkin was compos mentis.
"Amy," said I, as I rubbed my eyes, to dissipate the film and mists of sleep, "is it very late? have you heard the horn blow for the hands to come in from work?"
"No, me hab not hearn it yet, but laws, Ann, me did tink you would neber talk no more."
"But you see I am talking now," and I could not resist a smile; "have you been nursing me?"
"No, indeed, Aunt Polly wouldn't let me come nigh yer bed, and she keep all de time washing your body and den rubbin' it wid a feader an' goose-greese. Oh, you did lay here so still, jist like somebody dead. Aunt Polly, she wouldn't let one ob us speak one word, sed it would 'sturb you; but I knowed you wasn't gwine to kere, so ebery time she went out, I jist laughed and talked as much as I want."
"But did you not want me to get well, Amy?"
"Why, sartin I did; but my laughin' want gwine to kill you, was it?" She looked up with a queer, roguish smile.
"No, but it might have increased my fever."
"Well, if you had died, I would hab got yer close, now you knows you promised 'em to me. So when I hearn Jake say you was dead, I run and got yer new calico dress, and dat ribbon what Miss Jane gib you, an' put dem in my box; den arter while Aunt Polly say you done kum back to life; so I neber say notin' more, I jist tuck de close and put dem back in yer box, and tink to myself, well, maybe I will git 'em some oder time."
It amused me not a little to find that upon mere suspicion of my demise, this little negro had levied upon my wardrobe, which was scanty indeed; but so it is, be we ever so humble or poor, there is always some one to regard us with a covetous eye. My little paraphernalia was, to this half-savage child, a rich and wondrous possession.
"Here, hold up yer foot, Ben, or you shan't hab any meat fur breakus." This threat was addressed to her young brother, whom she nursed like a baby, and whose tiny foot seemed to resist the restraint of a shoe.
I looked long at them, and mused with a strange sorrow upon their probable destiny. Bitter I knew it must be. For, where is there, beneath the broad sweep of the majestic heavens, a single one of the dusky tribe of Ethiopia who has not felt that existence was to him far more a curse than a blessing? You, oh, my tawny brothers, who read these tear-stained pages, ask your own hearts, which, perhaps, now ache almost to bursting, ask, I say, your own vulture-torn hearts, if life is not a hard, hard burden? Have you not oftentimes prayed to the All-Merciful to sever the mystic tie that bound you here, to loosen your chains and set you, soul and body, free? Have you not, from the broken chinks of your lonely cabins at night, looked forth upon the free heavens, and murmured at your fate? Is there, oh! slave, in your heart a single pleasant memory? Do you not, captive-husband, recollect with choking pride how the wife of your bosom has been cruelly lashed while you dared not say one word in her defence? Have