his great relief, for he began to have serious misgivings about his
outlay on old Molly, there came along one day an excellent customer.
This was no less a person than Madame Flamingo. What was singular of
this very distinguished lady was, that she always had a use for old
slaves no one else ever thought of. Her yard was full of aged and
tottering humanity. One cleaned knives, another fetched ice from the
ice-house, a third blacked boots, a fourth split wood, a fifth carried
groceries, and a sixth did the marketing. She had a decayed negro for
the smallest service; and, to her credit be it said, they were as
contented and well fed a body of tottering age as could be found in old
Carolina.
Her knife-cleaning machine having taken it into his head to die one
day, she would purchase another. Mr. Forsheu, with that urbanity we so
well understand how to appreciate, informed the distinguished lady that
he had an article exactly suited to her wants. Forthwith, Molly was
summoned into her presence. Madame Flamingo, moved almost to tears at
the old slave’s appearance, purchased her out of pure sympathy, as we
call it, and to the great relief of Mr. Forsheu, lost no time in paying
one hundred and forty dollars down in gold for her. In deference to Mr.
Hadger, the House of The Foreign Missions, and the very excellent Tract
Society, of New York, we will not here extend on how the money was got.
The transaction was purely commercial: why should humanity interpose?
We hold it strictly legal that institutions created for the purpose of
enlightening the heathen have no right to ask by what means the money
constituting their donations is got.
The comforts of Mr. Forsheu’s pen,—the hominy, grits, and rest, made
the old slave quite as reluctant about leaving him as she had before
been in parting with Lady Swiggs. Albeit, she shook his hand with equal
earnestness, and lisped “God bless Massa,” with a tenderness and
simplicity so touching, that had not Madame Flamingo been an excellent
diplomat, reconciling the matter by assuring her that she would get
enough to eat, and clothes to wear, no few tears would have been shed.
Madame, in addition to this incentive, intimated that she might attend
a prayer meeting now and then-perhaps see Cicero. However, Molly could
easily have forgotten Cicero, inasmuch as she had enjoyed the rare
felicity of thirteen husbands, all of whom Lady Swiggs had sold when it
suited her own convenience.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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