It’s very queer, but Sam believe it and then
she sing, ‘Come unto me.’
“Oh, so fine, the very rafters hold their breff, and Sam find the way.
Sam feel the hand she say was stretched out for him. He grasp it tight.
He never let it go, never cease thankin’ God that ‘Come unto me’ mean
just such an ole nigger as Sam, or that Miss Ellis was sent to him. She
teach me ‘Our Father,’ and I say it every day, and I ’members her, too,
and now I puts her and Mas’r Hugh in de same words. Seems ef they make
good span, only Mas’r Hugh not so fixed up as she, but he’s good.”
“Where is Miss Ellis now?” Adah asked, and Sam replied,
“Gone home. Gone to Masser—what you say once—but not till letter come to
her from Mas’r Brown, sayin’ Sam was stealed, and ’fore long Mas’r Brown
come on hisself after me and the others. Miss Ellis so glad, and Mas’r
Fitzhugh, too. Sam not much ’count, he say, and let me go easy, that’s
the way I come home. Miss Ellis gived me five dollars and then ask what
else. I look at her and say, ‘Sam wants a spear or two of yer shinin’
har’, and Miss Mabel takes shears and cut a little curl. I’se got ’em
now. I never spend the money,” and from an old leathern wallet Sam drew
a bill and a soft silken curl which he laid across Adah’s hand.
“And where is Sullivan?” asked Adah, a chill creeping over her as she
remembered how about four years ago the man she called her guardian was
absent for some time, and came back to her with colored hair and
whiskers.
“Oh, he gone long before, nobody know whar. Sam b’lieves, though, he
hear they cotch him, but misremembers, got such mizzable memory.”
“You said he had a mark?” Adah continued. And Sam replied, “Yes, queer
mark,—must of been thar when he was borned, showd better when he’s
cussin mad. You ever seen him?”
“I do not know,” and Adah half groaned aloud at the sad memories which
Sam’s story had awakened within her.
She could scarcely doubt that _Sullivan_ the negro-stealer, and
Redfield, her guardian, were the same, but where was he now, and why had
he treated her so treacherously, when he had always seemed so kind? Why
did everybody desert her? What had she done to deserve so sad a fate?
All the old bitter anguish was welling up again, and desirous of being
alone, she bade Sam leave her as it was growing late.
“Miss Adah prays,” the old man answered, “Won’t she say Our Father with
Sam?”
Adah could not refuse, and falling on her knees she joined her voice
with that of Sam’s in that most beautiful of all prayers—the one our
Saviour taught. Sam did not know it correctly, but God heard him all the
same; heard too, the strangely-worded petition that “He would bless
Mas’r Hugh, Miss Ellis, and Miss Adah, and fotch ’em all right some
time.”
Surely Hugh’s sleep was sweeter that night for the prayer breathed by
the lowly negro, and even the wild tumult in Adah’s heart was hushed by
Sam’s simple childlike faith that God would bring all right at last.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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