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156 |
UNCLE TOM'S CABIN; OR |
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Oh, mamma," said a boy, who had just come up from below, " there 's a negro-trader on board, and he 's brought four or five slaves down there."
" Poor creatures! " said the mother, in a tone between grief and indignation.
" What's that ? " said another lady.
" Some poor slaves below," said the mother.
" And they 've got chains on," said the boy.
" What a shame to our country that such sights are to be seen! " said another lady.
" Oh, there 's a great deal to be said on both sides of the subject," said a genteel woman, who sat at her stateroom door sewing, while her little boy and girl were playing round her. " I 've been South, and I must say I think the negroes are better off than they would be to be free."
" In some respects, some of them are well off, I grant," said the lady to whose remark she had answered. " The most dreadful part of slavery, to my mind, is its outrages on the feelings and affections, — the separating of families, for example."
" That is a bad thing, certainly," said the other lady, folding up a baby's dress she had just completed, and looking intently on its trimmings ; " but then, I fancy, it don't occur often."
" Oh, it does," said the first lady, eagerly; " I 've lived many years in Kentucky and Virginia both, and I 've seen enough to make any one's heart sick. Suppose, ma'am, your two children, there, should be taken from you, and sold ? "
" We can't reason from our feelings to those of this class of persons," said the other lady, sorting out some worsteds on her lap.
" Indeed, ma'am, you can know nothing of them, if you say so," answered the first lady, warmly. " I was born and brought up among them. I know they do feel, just as keenly — even more so, perhaps — as we do."
The lady said " Indeed! " yawned, and looked out the |
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