Chapter 16

This first little wood, then, though somewhat dark and damp, had its pleasant and cheerful associations; but the wood beyond was weird and dismal, with its dense shade, its fallen trees rotting in dark gullies, its depth of decaying leaves, into which your feet sank down and down, until in alarm you doubted whether there were really any footing beneath, or if it would be possible ever to extricate yourself again. These two woods touched only at one point, included in an angle between a little burying-ground, whose solemn associations increased the gloom of the farther wood. As children, we had been wont, in adventurous moods, to cross one corner of the burying-ground, and striking into a ravine within this wood, down which trickled a little dark stream, wade up it barefoot, with grave, half-awe-stricken faces, until the stream sank again beneath the dead leaves, emptying itself I know not where. We had given wild and fantastic names to some of the ways and places about this ravine, but the rest of the wood was so little attractive and enjoyable that we generally avoided it, unless in some ramble of unusual length, we wished to strike across one portion of it, making thereby a somewhat shorter cut into the turnpike road a mile or two beyond.

As I stood this hot summer-day looking toward the woods, suddenly there stood before me a strongly-made middle-aged negro woman. Whether she had glided round the house, or in what way she had come so suddenly and quietly before me, I do not know; but there she stood, bare-headed, and humbly asking for a piece of bread, or any cold food that I could spare. Her appearance struck me with surprise; her skin was of a deep, rich, yellow brown, her face soft and kindly in expression, but wonderfully swollen, and with the appearance of being one mass of bruises. Her red, inflamed eyes seemed to weep incessantly and involuntarily; whatever might be the expression of her mouth, so inflamed and suffering were they, that they were pitiful to see; and to complete the picture, the stump of one of her arms, which had been severed at some former period, close to the shoulder, was but partially hidden by her ragged, low-necked dress. Her whole appearance struck me as the most pathetic I had ever beheld.

I speedily brought the poor thing some bread and cold meat, which she received with warm expressions of gratitude; and she then told me that she was a fugitive slave, and having come here at night with her husband, at the approach of day they had hidden themselves within the wood.

'And oh!' she said, 'you would be sorry if you could see my husband. He is not an old man at all, but you would think he was very old, if you could see him; his hair is so white, his face is so wrinkled, and his back all bowed down. He is so cowed and frightened that he doesn't dare come out of the wood, though he is almost starving. We ran away a little while ago, and they caught us and took us down the river to Louisville; and there they just knocked us down on the ground like beeves that they were going to kill, and beat us until we could neither stand nor move. The moment we got a chance, we ran away again. But my poor husband shakes like a leaf, and can not travel far at once, he is so frightened.'

Then she spoke of her bruised face, and said that the sun hurt her eyes so dreadfully, begging me to give her some old thing to cover them with and keep off the light. 'It would be such a mercy,' she said, and 'Heaven will bless you for helping us when we are so distressed.'

I betook myself again to the garret; there were plenty of old bonnets, to be sure; but, alas! all of them were of such a style that they might serve, indeed, to adorn the back of the head, but were none of them of any manner of use to shelter a pair of distressed eyes. While rummaging about, I came at length upon something which struck me as just the thing required; it was an ancient relic, more venerable even than 'my son's boots,' but in excellent preservation. It was a head-dress that had been manufactured for my mother, some twenty years ago, before the invention of sun-bonnets, or broad hats. It was called a calash, and was constructed of green silk outside and white silk within, reeved upon cane, similar in fashion to the 'uglies,' which, at the present day, English ladies are wont to prefix to the front of their bonnets when traveling or rusticating by the seaside; but instead of being something to attach to the bonnet, it was a complete bonnet in itself, gigantic and bow-shaped, which would fold together flat as a pancake, or opening like an accordeon, it could be drawn forward over the face to any required extent, by means of a ribbon attached to the front. It was effective, light, and cool, and the green tint afforded a very pleasant shade to the eyes. I seized upon it and carried it to the poor woman, who received it with transport, clapped it immediately upon her head and drew it well down over her face. She took up the bread and meat, telling me with many thanks, that as soon as she and her husband had eaten, they should continue on their way, not waiting for the night, as they were very anxious to find themselves further from the Kentucky border. I wished her God speed, and watched her as she crossed the open turf, her bundle in her hand, and the great green calash nodding forward upon her head, until she disappeared within the wood.

She had scarce been ten minutes out of my sight when a very unpleasant misgiving came over me. That great green calash that she had been so glad to receive--what an odd and unusual head-dress it was! Surely, it would attract attention; it would render her a marked object. If her pursuers should once get upon her traces, it would enable them to track her from point to point. I wished, with all my heart, it had been less conspicuous, and I began to think that my researches in the garret were not destined to be particularly fortunate. I wished exceedingly that my friend the minister's daughter, had been at home, that I might have taken counsel with her and have had the benefit of her experience in such matters.

As I was still standing in the doorway, ruminating upon the subject with a troubled soul, I saw in the distance the figure of a student of theology, whom I knew to be a friend of our old minister and his daughter, and thoroughly anti-slavery in principle. I hastened after him, told him the circumstances of the case, and imparted to him my misgivings. He promised me to put the matter into safe hands, and to have a look-out kept for the wanderers. After a few hours he returned to me with the welcome intelligence that the fugitives had been overtaken on the turnpike road a mile or two beyond, by one of the emissaries of the underground railway in a covered cart, in which they had been comfortably stowed, and safely forwarded on their way, and that from that time forth they would be speedily and quietly passed from point to point and from friend to friend, until they reached their destination.

A weight was lifted from my heart, I could have danced for joy; and I learned with astonishment, that the agent, who had come like an angel to the relief of the poor fugitives, was no other than a little ugly negro man, who had often worked in our garden, and who was usually employed to do the roughest and dirtiest work in the neighborhood. His crooked figure, his bandy legs, and little ape-like head, had always led me to regard him as the most unpromising specimen of his race that I had ever beheld; but from that time forth I regarded him with respect. The poor crooked form, distorted by hard toil, contained a heart, and the little ape-like head a brain, to help his outcast brethren in the hour of need.

As time passed on, the borders of the wood of which I have already spoken, began to be invaded by the woodman. Rough, ragged bits were cleared, and cheap, slight, frame houses sprang up, some of them erected and owned by the workmen in the neighborhood, some of them put up by speculators, and rented to a poor class of tenants. Playing about outside one of these shanties, a pretty child might soon be seen, a fair-haired, blue-eyed boy of five years old or thereabouts. So regular were his features, so white his skin, it would hardly have been suspected that he had any but European blood in his veins, had it not been known that the house was occupied by colored people, to whom he seemed to belong. An old man was said to be lying ill in the house, which was rented by two colored women, who were anxious to get work in the neighborhood, or washing and sewing to do at home. At that time I was preparing for rather a long journey; and on inquiring for some one to sew for me, Sallie Smith was sent to me. When she came, I learned that she was an inmate of one of the new cottages, and the grandmother of the pretty child of whom we have spoken.

Sallie Smith came and went, carrying home pieces of work, which she dispatched quickly and well. She was a fine-looking mulatto-woman, in the prime of life, with wavy black hair and sparkling eyes, though her features preserved the negro cast. Her manners had a warmth and geniality belonging to good specimens of her race, with a freedom that was odd and amusing, but never offensive. When she brought home her work, with some comical expression of fatigue, she would sink upon the ground, as if utterly exhausted by the walk and the heat, and sitting at my feet, would play with the hem of my dress, as she talked over what she had done, and what still remained to be done; or related to me, in answer to my inquiries, scraps of her past history, her thoughts about her race in general, her religious experiences, and the affairs of her church in Cincinnati, of which she was an enthusiastic member.

On inquiring about the health of her old, bed-ridden husband, I learned, to my surprise, that he was a white man.

'You see,' she said, 'he wasn't a gentleman at all; he was one of those _mean whites_ down South.' As she said this, the scornful emphasis on _mean whites_ was something quite indescribable. Truly, the condition of poor whites at the South must be pitiable indeed, to be regarded with such utter contempt by the very slaves themselves.

'We lived,' she continued, 'in a miserable little hut, in a pine wood, and I was his only slave. I kept house, and worked for him. He was one of the shiftless kind, and there was nothing _he_ could do. Oh! he was a poor, miserable creature, I tell you, always in debt! Well, we had two children, a girl and a boy.'

'Did he ever have any other wife?' I inquired.

She fired up, indignantly. 'No, indeed; I guess I'd never have stood that! Well, he was always promising to come to a Free State; but he was always in debt, and couldn't get the money to come, and Jane, she was growing up a very pretty girl, and when she was about seventeen, the creditors came and seized her, and sold her for a slave, to pay his debts.'

'What! sold his own daughter!' I exclaimed.

'Why, yes. She was _my_ daughter, too, you know; so she was his property, and so he couldn't hinder them from taking her.'

'How he must have felt!' I exclaimed.

She caught me up quickly. '_Felt!_ why, you know how a father _must_ feel in such a case. It broke him down worse than ever. Yes, we felt bad enough when they carried Jane away. Well, she was bought by the principal creditor; he was a rich man, with a large plantation, and a wife and children, and lots of slaves, and he kept Jane at the house, to sew for him, and by-and-by she had a child that was almost as white as his other children. You see,' she added apologetically, 'Jane didn't know it was wrong; she was only a poor sinner, who didn't know nothing. She had never been to church or learned any thing, and I didn't know much either _then_. It was only when I came North and joined the church, that I began to know about such things. But I grieved day and night for Jane, that I couldn't get her back. Well, for a time we were out of debt, you see, and I persuaded my husband to come right up North, for fear he should get into debt again, and they should seize the boy too; so we came to Cincinnati, and we got the boy a place there, and he's doing very well.

'There I joined the Church; but I couldn't help thinking of Jane, and grieving after her all the time, and I prayed to the Lord for her, and I prayed and prayed, and by-and-by, I don't know how it happened, but her master let her bring the child and come and pay me a visit. It seemed as if the Lord had blinded him, so that he did not know that if she came North, she might be free. He was that stupid, he had not the least suspicion that she'd stay; he thought she'd come right back to him. And when she did not come, he wrote to her, and wrote again; and when still she didn't come, he came himself to fetch her. But I took care to have Jane out of the way, and saw him myself. And he coaxed and persuaded, and he stormed and he threatened; oh! he was awful mad. But I jist shook my fist in his face, and said, 'You ole slaveholder, you, you jist go back to ole Virginny; you niver git my daughter agin!''

As she uttered these words, Sallie compressed her mouth with a look of dogged resolution; her black eyes glowed with smothered anger, and she shook her fist energetically in the air, as if the phantom of the Virginian slaveholder were still before her. After a pause, she recovered herself and continued:

'How he did go on! He cursed and he swore; but it was of no manner of use; I'd nothin' else to say to him, and by-and-by he had to go away; you see, he couldn't do nothin', because Jane had come North _with his consent_. So Jane and I, we came up here, and we get what work we can, and take care of the child, and nurse the old man. He's miserable! he don't often leave his bed, and he's not likely to get much better, for he's old and completely broke.'

So Sallie had told me her history; but she had not done. Her active mind had found an outlet in the little negro church at Cincinnati, of which she was a member. Her intense religious enthusiasm mingled with her deep perception of the wrongs and cruelties inflicted upon her race. Her soul lay like a glowing volcano beneath that easy, careless Southern manner, which might have led one at first to regard her as merely a jolly, ignorant, negro-woman.

At a word which one day touched upon this chord, her work fell from her hands, her eyes flashed, and she poured forth, in old Scripture phraseology, her indignation, her aspirations, and her glowing faith. She wholly identified her race with the Jews in their wanderings and their captivity, and the old descriptive and prophetic words fell from her lips, as if wrung from her heart, startling one by the wondrous fitness of the application. There was such magnetic power in her intense earnestness, her strong emotions, and her certain and exultant trust in God and his providence, that it held me spell-bound. I listened, as if one of the old prophets had risen before me. I never heard eloquence like it; for I never witnessed such an intense sense of the reality and force of the cause which had called it forth. I can not recall her words; but I remember, after describing the cruelty and apparent hopelessness of her people's captivity, their groans, their prayers to the Lord, day after day and year after year, their darkness and despair, their still-continued crying unto God for help, she concluded by describing how the Lord at length would appear for their relief. 'He will come,' she said; 'he will shake and shake the nations, and will say: 'Let my people go free.' And though there should seem to be no way, he shall open the way before them, and they shall go forth free. They shall sing and give thanks, for in the Lord have they trusted, and they shall never be confounded.' She paused. Her words made a deep impression upon me. At that time, how dark and hopeless seemed the way! nothing then pointed to a coming deliverance. Blind faith in God alone was left us; but how cold seemed the faith and trust of the warmest advocate of Emancipation among us, to the glowing certainty of God's help, which possessed the soul of this poor, ignorant negro-woman. Sallie took up her shawl and bonnet, and was about to go. I roused myself, and looking at her with a half-smile, 'You speak in church?' I said.

An instant change passed over her face. Her eyes twinkled a moment, with a shrewd appreciation of my guess. She drew herself up, with a gleam of pride and pleasure; she nodded an assent, and wrapping her shawl around her, she turned away.

I have never seen her since; but her truly prophetic words often recur to me now, when the Lord is shaking the nations; when, if we fail to listen to his words, and to let his poor, oppressed people go, he must surely shake and shake again. Every day, our concern in the negro race becomes a clearer and more self-evident fact. Every bulletin impresses it anew upon our thoughts. Every soldier laid to rest upon the battle-field engraves it still deeper upon the nation's heart.

* * * * *

THE EDUCATION TO BE.

1. _Principles and Practice of Early and Infant School Education_. By James Currie, A.M. Third edition. Edinburgh: 1861.

2. _Papers for the Teacher_. No. 1: American Contributions to Pedagogy. Edited by Henry Barnard, LL.D. New York: 1860.

3. _Education; Intellectual, Moral, and Physical_. By Herbert Spencer. New York: 1861.

4. _A Series of School and Family Readers_. Compiled by Marcius Willson. New York: 1860-1.

5. _Primary Object Lessons, for a Graduated Course of Development_. By N.A. Calkins. New York: 1861.

6. _Annual Reports of Superintendents of Schools_: City of New York, 1861; Oswego, 1860; Chicago, 1861.

7. _The New York Teacher_. Monthly. Albany, Vols. 7-10: 1858-61.

'The most certain means,' Beccaria wrote in the preceding century, 'of rendering a people free and happy, is, to establish a perfect method of education.' If, in this conclusion, Beccaria only reiterates an opinion at least tacitly held long before his time by some of the Grecian sages, still, the later assertion of the principle should, it seems, derive some additional weight from the circumstance of the time allowed in the interim for repeated reconsiderations of the question. The theologian may interpose, that, toward rendering a people free and happy, the influences of religion must constitute the most efficacious, the dominant agency. But when we admit that man is _one_,--that heart and hand are not only alike, but together subjects for culture,--then it will be seen that religion falls into its place in the one comprehensive scheme of human education; and we discover that Beccaria's position, instead of being assailed from this point of view, becomes, according as our conception of the case is truthful and clear, correspondingly strengthened.

The ease, however, with which we utter those little qualifiers, 'free' and 'happy,' observed to stand here in the positive or absolute degree, and not in any degree of comparison, is noticeable. For 'degrees of comparison' are always concessions of steps _down_, even when they most stoutly present themselves as steps _up_. Were all men simply wise and just, all predicating of certain men that they were _more_, or _most, wise_ or _just_, would be at once absurd and without utility. It is our intensified adjective that confesses fatally the prior fact of a coming short, and by an amount indefinitely great, of the simple, absolute standard. So, to come once for all to ridding ourselves of comparative forms of speech, and to be warranted to look for the rendering of a people, in the simple, positive sense, free and happy, would be, in the expressive language of one 'aunt Chloe' respecting the 'glory' to which she aspired, 'a mighty thing!' On the other hand, so far have our race, up to this moment, and without a single decided instance in exception, fallen short of aught that could be styled a perfect method of education, and so closely must educational training affect every nascent man or woman in those vitalest particulars,--character and capability,--that, could the perfect method sought once be brought into effective operation on the plastic child-manhood of a nation, or of all nations, we are not prepared to deny the possibility of any results therefrom to humanity, even the grandest utterable or conceivable. Admitting such method found, and in process, Beccaria could have dispensed with his tell-tale 'most,' and written, The certain means of rendering a people free and happy, is, to establish a perfect method of education.

To secure, therefore, so great an end: First, find--the perfect educational method! The recipe is brief; the labor it imposes is more than Herculean. To measure it, we should have to find the ratio in which mind transcends matter, or that in which the broad generalizations of genius in the materials of science surpass the poor conceptions that the wild Australian must almost utter audibly in his own ear to realize that he at all possesses them.

In the 5,865 years which the most unquestioned belief accords to the history of man on our planet, could we suppose the average duration of life throughout equal to that of a generation now, there would have been time for 177 generations of working, planning, inventive men--of men desiring at each period the best they could conceive of, and framing the best schemes they were capable of to attain it. Here has been space for the slow rise and fall of nation after nation,--vast solitary tides heaving at long intervals the face of a wide, living, sullen sea: and history reports that the nations have actually risen, flourished, and fallen. Here has been space for exquisite triumphs of art; for the late birth, and nevertheless large progress, of the sciences concerned about phenomena of physical nature; the art triumphs have been achieved, and the germs of sciences are in our possession. Here has been space for the multiplication, upon all imaginable themes, of books, to a number and volume utterly beyond the powers of the most prolonged and assiduous life even to peruse; and the books crowd our alcoves, and meet us wherever men are wont to make their abode or transit. Here has been space for the organization, though so long impracticable and late conceived, of a system of daily diffusion of intelligence, and to such a pitch as almost to bring the world freshly photographed to our eyes with each returning sun; and, lo! the photographs are here; they await us at the breakfast or the counting table. Here has been space for the springing up among the people, at distances of years or centuries, of profound educating intellects, marked by clear insight, large human love, and patient self-sacrifice, and contributing to the growth of humanity by worthy examples, and by propounding successively more and more rational modes for the informing and developing of youthful minds; and, see! Confucius, Socrates and Plato, Petrarch, Bacon, Comenius, Pestalozzi, Père Girard, Arnold of Rugby, and Horace Mann--to make no mention of many co-laborers among the dead, and earnest successors among the living--stepping from their niches in the vanishing corridors of history, lay at our feet the treasures accumulated through their patient and clear thought and their faithful experience.