in that airy place, have them with her all day long. Bad as this is for her at such a time, as depriving her of all quiet and rest in the daytime, it is better, she says, than being in a perpetual fever lest some little one should be dropped into the fire, or out of the window, by the negro nurse. During this drive, I ventured to suggest that Minnie might spare her mother much fatigue and some cares; but I was not allowed to dwell upon it. It was a thing that no mother could think of. The poor child would have little enough time for her own pursuits and pleasures. She would be steeped to the lips in family cares before she was twenty, and never again be free; and not one day of her period of liberty and ease should be cut off. I saw there was no use in arguing the matter, even as a champion of Minnie herself.
We traversed the pretty little prairie, and I could fill pages with mere notices of the beautiful things we passed in the woods and by the river side; but a spectacle which we encountered on our return put everything else out of my head at the time.
Among the calls we made was one for which I ought to have been prepared. The gentleman of the house showed the usual courtesy and goodhumour, but not the ordinary gaiety of manner which most strikes a stranger in that part of the country. His lady was well and even gaily dressed, and was surrounded by evidences of good pursuits ;—books in abundance, music, and some botanical collections of real value. She was composed in manner, kind and courteous; but there was an expression in her eyes which I could not meet a second time. I avoided her eyes in conversation as if I were conscious of some shame or perplexity. As soon as we were in the carriage, I inquired if any particular story belonged to that house.
“Yes, indeed,” my sister whispered. The twin children,—the only children,—had been poisoned by their black nurse, six years ago. Nothing more was known than that they had died within a week of each other, unquestionably from poison, which must have been given by the nurse: and, indeed, she did not deny it. She bore some grudge against her master, it was thought; but she herself said she wanted to die, but thought she would do something particular first.
“She was hanged, of course?” said I.
“Why, no,” replied Anna. “There were reasons—or feelings, perhaps,—in the way of that. But it was also feared that the execution would make a great deal of talk among the negroes in the neighbourhood; and parents of young children were against it. It was thought safest to sell her to a distance, into Texas.”
“Sell her!” I exclaimed. “Sell her, to go and poison somebody else!”
“I should hope not,” said Anna, reflectively. “It is said, I know, that poisoners cannot stop: but this was so peculiar a case{{.. Besides they would make a field hand of her.”
“And has that gentleman pocketed the value of the woman who murdered his children? Are his wife’s luxuries bought with that money?”
“He had twelve hundred dollars for her,” replied Anna. “It was a good deal for a field hand; but she was a valuable servant, and”
“Exceedingly so,” I observed.
“You know what I mean,” said Anna. “But it is a sad story—a very sad story; and you must not suppose such things happen often.”
“Only wherever I happen to go in the South,” I replied. “In every family there is some capital negro to boast of; and in every neighbourhood there is some tragedy to be whispered which harrows up the souls of people who do not live among horrors.”
“Don’t you suppose our souls are harrowed too ?” asked Anna, with quivering lips.
More than once during that visit I had reason to know why the negroes were sent to their quarter for the night so early and so regularly. Two or three of them, who preferred sleeping in the passages or offices, were routed out, and sent to their own cabins; but we never felt sure that some one had not taken his own way and remained. Certain visitors, therefore, who came when all the lights were out in the negro quarter, tapped at the window, instead of applying at the door. D instantly let them in. They were members of the permanent Vigilance Committee, and they came to tell whatever they had learned of the suspicious Mean-whites in the neighbourhood, and of the behaviour of the negroes on the various plantations. D was informed that his people were too much in the habit of being out in the woods all night. D was aware of this. He had gone himself to the prayer-meeting in the swamp to judge for himself of its effects: he had at length forbidden his negroes to go, and had used all means, even to very severe punishment, to keep them at home. He knew he had been baffled, and was thinking of changing his overseer; but the doubt was whether he would ever get a better. He would be really obliged to the Committee if they would advise him how to proceed. They were rather stiff about this, and peremptory about the requirements of the public safety; but they softened after a course of brandy-and-water, and when the conversation turned on a bookseller at Mobile who had been detected in harbouring in his store, not only an unmutilated copy of Cowper’s Poems, but a copy of “Uncle Tom’s Cabin,” which he absurdly pleaded had been ordered by a customer, and was to have been forwarded to the purchaser the next morning. All present (except myself, and I said nothing), agreed as to the necessity of getting rid of so dangerous a resident; and, indeed, he was already shipped off for the North—(“the d—d North,” whence he came). His family were with him; and his property—why, he was obliged to leave his stock and furniture behind, and everything in confusion. Perhaps they would sell pretty well; and if not, it served him right, for criminal carelessness or worse.
There have been graver alarms since those days, though the time I have spoken of was not very remote. Whether the announced conspiracy in 1856 was real or imaginary, the effects were much the same. No one knew whom to trust; and every citizen and every slave was at the mercy of any malignant informer. D’s property suf-