"now, maud," said uncle jovially as he, aunt, and i drove into the confines of their beautiful place one spring afternoon of 1860, "don't forget that to be too near a thing is as bad for a good view of it as to be too far away."
i was a slim, tallish girl of scant sixteen, who had never seen a slaveholder on his plantation, though i had known these two for years, and loved them dearly, as guests in our northern home before it was broken up by the death of my mother. father was an abolitionist, and yet he and they had never had a harsh word between them. if the general goodness of those who do some particular thing were any proof that that particular thing is good to do, they would have convinced me, without a word, that slaveholding was entirely right. but they were not trying to do any such thing. "remember," continued my uncle, smiling round at me, "your dad's trusting you not to bring back our honest opinion--of anything--in place of your own."
"maud," my aunt hurried to put in, for she knew the advice i had just heard was not the kind i most needed, "you're going to have for your own maid the blackest girl you ever saw."
"and the best," added my uncle; "she's as good as she is black."
"she's no common darky, that sidney," said aunt. "she'll keep you busy answering questions, my dear, and i say now, you may tell her anything she wants to know; we give you perfect liberty; and you may be just as free with hester; that's her mother; or with her father, silas."
"we draw the line at mingo," said uncle.
"and who is mingo?" i inquired.
"mingo? he's her brother; a very low and trailing branch of the family tree."
as we neared the house i was told more of the father and mother; their sweet content, their piety, their diligence. "if we lived in town, where there's better chance to pick up small earnings," remarked uncle, "those two and sidney would have bought their freedom by now, and mingo's too. silas has got nearly enough to buy his own, as it is."
silas, my aunt explained, was a carpenter. "he hands your uncle so much a week; all he can make beyond that he's allowed to keep." the carriage stopped at the door; half a dozen servants came, smiling, and i knew sidney and hester at a glance, they were so finely different from their fellows.
that night the daughter and i made acquaintance. she was eighteen, tall, lithe and as straight as an arrow. she had not one of the physical traits that so often make her race uncomely to our eyes; even her nose was good; her very feet were well made, her hands were slim and shapely, the fingers long and neatly jointed, and there was nothing inky in her amazing blackness, her red blood so enriched it. yet she was as really african in her strong, eager mind as in her color, and the english language, on her tongue, was like a painter's palette and brushes in the hands of a monkey. her first question to me after my last want was supplied came cautiously, after a long gaze at my lighted lamp, from a seat on the floor. "miss maud, when was de conwention o' coal-oil 'scuvvud?" and to her good night she added, in allusion to my eventual return to the north, "i hope it be a long time afo' you make dat repass!"
at the next bedtime she began on me with the innocent question of my favorite flower, but i had not answered three other questions before she had placed me where i must either say i did not believe in the right to hold slaves, or must keep silence; and when i kept silence of course she knew. for a long moment she dropped her eyes, and then, with a soft smile, asked if i would tell her some bible stories, preferably that of "moses in de boundaries o' egyp'."
she listened in gloating silence, rarely interrupting; but at the words, "thus saith the lord god of israel, 'let my people go,'" the response, "pra-aise gawd!" rose from her lips in such volume that she threw her hands to her mouth. after that she spoke only soft queries, but they grew more and more significant, and i soon saw that her supposed content was purely a pious endurance, and that her soul felt bondage as her body would have felt a harrow. so i left the fugitives of egyptian slavery under the frown of the almighty in the wilderness of sin; sidney was trusting me; uncle and aunt were trusting me; and between them i was getting into a narrow corner. after a meditative silence my questioner asked:
"miss maud, do de bible anywhuz capitulate dat moses aw aaron aw joshaway aw cable buy his freedom--wid money?"
her manner was childlike, yet she always seemed to come up out of deep thought when she asked a question; she smiled diffidently until the reply began to come, then took on a reverential gravity, and as soon as it was fully given sank back into thought. "miss maud, don't you reckon dat ef moses had a-save' up money enough to a-boughtened his freedom, dat'd a-been de wery sign mos' pleasin' to gawd dat he 'uz highly fitten to be sot free widout paying?" to that puzzle she waited for no answer beyond the distress i betrayed, but turned to matters less speculative, and soon said good night.
on the third evening--my! if i could have given all the topography of the entire country between uncle's plantation and my native city on the margin of the great lakes, with full account of its every natural and social condition, her questions would have wholly gathered them in. she asked if our climate was very hard on negroes; what clothing we wore in summer, and how we kept from freezing in midwinter; about wages, the price of food, what crops were raised, and what the "patarolers" did with a negro when they caught one at night without a pass.
she made me desperate, and when the fourth night saw her crouched on my floor it found me prepared; i plied her with questions from start to finish. she yielded with a perfect courtesy; told of the poor lot of the few free negroes of whom she knew, and of the time-serving and shifty indolence, the thievishness, faithlessness, and unaspiring torpidity of "some niggehs"; and when i opened the way for her to speak of uncle and aunt she poured forth their praises with an ardor that brought her own tears. i asked her if she believed she could ever be happy away from them.
she smiled with brimming eyes: "why, i dunno, miss maud; whatsomeveh come, and whensomeveh, and howsomeveh de lawd sen' it, ef us feels his ahm und' us, us ought to be 'shame' not to be happy, oughtn't us?" all at once she sprang half up: "i tell you de lawd neveh gi'n no niggeh de rights to snuggle down anywhuz an' fo'git de auction-block!"
as suddenly the outbreak passed, yet as she settled down again her exaltation still showed through her fond smile. "you know what dat inqui'ance o' yone bring to my 'memb'ance? dass ow ole canaan hymn----
"'o i mus' climb de stony hill
pas' many a sweet desiah,
de flow'ry road is not fo' me,
i follows cloud an' fiah.'"
after she was gone i lay trying so to contrive our next conversation that it should not flow, as all before it had so irresistibly done, into that one deep channel of her thoughts which took in everything that fell upon her mind, as a great river drinks the rains of all its valleys. presently the open window gave me my cue: the stars! the unvexed and unvexing stars, that shone before human wrongs ever began, and that will be shining after all human wrongs are ended--our talk should be of them.
