A graduate of Amherst met us as we mounted the platform once occupied by the demonstrator of anatomy. He was a sober, sedate figure, in professional black, and, with his dignified ways, might have been taken for a Southern Doctor of Divinity, if you did not look at his face. That was as black as his coat. His son, a handsome, graceful young fellow (always barring the black face and the kinky wool), took his seat at the piano. The sober representative of Amherst rapped on the table, and tapped the little bell, till the children slowly and gradually mastered the almost irrepressible torrent of whispers and laughter. But the bell-taps sounded clearer and clearer; silence at last reigned. A hymn was read; the young negro at the piano softly touched the keys for a moment, and then the whole rich, joyous nature of the children gushed into a volume of melody that rose and swelled till the very air of the old lecture-room was vocal with praise. It was like listening to the grand peals of Plymouth Church itself. There followed a little address, with, perhaps, a trifle too much of talk about their liberty, and too little of how it should be made profitable; too much about the prejudices against them, and too little about the means for an improvement which should conquer prejudices; too much about the faults of their masters, and too little about their own. But this seems to be the general strain; and perhaps, after all, it may be necessary, in some such way, to gain the confidence of the children before you can instruct them. Occasional questions kept alive the interest, and the lustily shouted answers showed an intelligence that plainly took in the full meaning of the speech. “What great man freed you all, and was then taken home?” Surely, if the murdered President could but have been present, beside his old associate, at that scene, he would have thought the shouts that brought back his name the sweetest praise the lips of mortals ever bore him. “Are you really free now?” “Yes, yes.” “What would you do if anybody should now try to take your freedom away?” It was fine to watch the play of surprise and apprehension across the animated faces. “We’d fight,” exclaimed a sturdy fellow, twelve or fourteen years old. “We wouldn’t let them,” said many more. “The soldiers would stop it,” murmured the most. That, alas! seemed still the main hope of these submissive, long-enslaved people. They had not reached—not even the oldest of them—the conception of organized effort to protect themselves. “The soldiers would stop it.” That was all. ----- Footnote 33: General Emory so admonished Rev. Thomas Conway, months after our occupation of the city. The idea seemed to be, that the Rebel population could not have their feelings agitated by efforts to teach their negroes, without great danger of popular disturbances! CHAPTER XXVI. Talks with the Citizens, White and Black.