The land was
empty and the servants all gone. I can see my dainty mistress coming
down the steps saying, "Rit, you and Henry will have to go and pick up
some chips, for Miss Mary and myself have to prepare the breakfast.
You children will have to learn to work. Do you understand me, Rit and
Henry?" "Yes, Missus, we understand." And away we flew, laughing, and
thinking it a great joke that we, Massa's pets, must learn to work.
But it was a sad, sad change on the old plantation, and the beautiful,
proud Sunny South, with its masters and mistresses, was bowed beneath
the sin brought about by slavery. It was a terrible blow to the owners
of plantations and slaves, and their children would feel it more than
they, for they had been reared to be waited upon by willing or
unwilling slaves.
In this place I will insert a poem my young mistress taught us, for
she was always reading poems and good stories. But first I will record
a talk I heard between my master and mistress. They were sitting in
the dining-room, and we children were standing around the table. My
mistress said, "I suppose, as Nancy has never returned, we had better
keep Henry, Caroline and Louise until they are of age." "Yes, we
will," said Massa, Miss Mary and Miss Martha, "but it is 'man proposes
and God disposes.
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