Willy observed that all this might be done without being married, and was done by everybody on the plantation, who would have married if the civil rights of marriage had been allowed to them as to the whites. “But you do every thing for yourself, Willy. You want nobody to sing to you, or to dance with you, or to go to market with you. You want nobody to love.” “I love you, father, and Nell, and Becky.” “But I shall die soon, and Nell will marry, and Becky loves her lover. It is time you should find somebody else to love.” “The time is past, father. I began to love Clara once, just before she died; and while I was forgetting my sorrow for her, I learned by what I saw, never to love anybody else.” “Why, Willy?” “Because a black must be first a slave and then a man. A white woman has nobody to rule her but her husband, and nobody can hurt her without his leave: but a slave’s wife must obey her master before her husband; and he cannot save her from being flogged. I saw my friend Hector throw himself on the ground when his wife was put in the stocks; and then I swore that I would never have a wife.” “But think of Hector’s children, Willy. O, you do not know the pleasure of hearing one’s little children laugh in the shade, when the sun makes one faint at noon! It is like a wind from the north. And to let them sleep under the same mat, and to see them play like the whites,—and then their master pats their heads sometimes when they follow him.” “Like dogs,” said Willy, “that as often get a kick as a kind word. When I see little children as clever and as merry as whites, I take them up in my arms and love them; but when they are carried away where their father shall never see them again, or when their mothers look sad to find them growing as stupid as we are, I am glad that I am not their father.” “Becky!” said her father, “are these the reasons that your lover will not marry you?” Becky made no answer; for the fact was she knew nothing more than that he thought there was no occasion. “Willy!” said the old man again, “if you will not love nor marry here, you will try to go somewhere where you can be a man and a husband without being a slave. You work in our ground. Is it that you may be free when I am dead?” “No, father, I shall not try to be free.” “Why then do you sow corn and dig our ground for us? If you get money, why will you not pay it to be free?” “I sow corn that you may have as good food as when you were young and could dig like me. I get money because others do so; but, unless it were many times as much, it does little good to me, for I shall never be free. The Englishmen, over the sea, tell us that they wish us to be free, and bid us try to buy our ransom; and when we have nearly done so, they put a higher price upon us, and laugh when we give up.” “How can people so far off raise our price?”