The moonbeams stole in through the crevices and cracks of the cabin, and cast a mystic gleam upon the surrounding objects. Without further word or comment, Polly betook herself to her cot, and was soon snoring away as though there were no such thing as care or slavery in the world. But to me sleep was a stranger. There I lay through the remaining hours of the night, wearily thinking of mother and home. "Sold," I murmured. "What is it to be sold? Why was _I_ sold? Why separated from my mother and friends? Why couldn't mother come with me, or I stay with her? I never saw Mr. Peterkin before. Who gave him the right to force me from my good home and kind friends?" These questions would arise in my mind, and, alas! I had no answers for them. Young and ignorant as I was, I had yet some glimmering idea of justice. Later in life, these same questions have often come to me, as sad commentaries upon the righteousness of human laws; and, when sitting in splendid churches listening to ornate and _worldly_ harangues from _holy men_, these same thoughts have tingled upon my tongue. And I have been surprised to see how strangely these men mistake the definition of servitude. Why, from the exposition of the worthy divines, one would suppose that servitude was a fair synonym for slavery! Admitting that we are the descendants of the unfortunate Ham, and endure our bondage as the penalty affixed to his crime, there can be no argument or fact adduced, whereby to justify slavery as a moral right. Serving and being a slave are very different. And why may not Ham's descendants claim a reprieve by virtue of the passion and death of Christ? Are we excluded from the grace of that atonement? No; there is no argument, no reason, to justify slavery, save that of human cupidity. But there will come a day, when each and every one who has violated that divine rule, "Do unto others as you would have them do unto you," will stand with a fearful accountability before the Supreme Judge. Then will there be loud cries and lamentations, and a wish for the mountains to hide them from the eye of Judicial Majesty. The next morning I rose with the dawn, and sitting upright upon my pallet, surveyed the room and its tenants. There, in comfortless confusion, upon heaps of straw, slumbered five children, dirty and ragged. On the broken cot, with a remnant of a coverlet thrown over her, lay Aunt Polly. A few broken stools and one pine box, with a shelf containing a few tins, constituted the entire furniture.