Ten minutes later, while I was walking through the grounds, attending to some necessary repairs, I saw the woman again, sitting now on the low stone fence that separated mine from the now deserted Harrison plantation. I walked up to her and reproved her sharply for keeping a year old child out so long in such cold weather. "What is its name?" I asked. "Marse Berk Harrison," she answered. "Let me see him," I said, and I took hold of the child's arm to see if he was good and fat. It was a common practice to name slave children after the families to whom they belonged. Then I pinched the child's fat cheeks and a lot of black stuff, like burnt cork, came off on my hand, showing a white skin beneath it. "Is he white?" I asked in astonishment. "Oh, yes, Marse Judkins, he's white, but we keeps him black, 'cause I has to take him so much with me to the quarters at the Hall." "Who is his mother?" "'Deed I don't know, Marse Judkins. Poor Miss Jude Berry over to the forks, I believe, but she's daid now this year gone--no two, last month--but her folks give him to me to raise, 'cause I lives at his uncles, an' they tole me to keep him black till he able to shift for hisself." "Don't bring him to my quarters again," I said, and I handed her two pieces of gold. That is all. Perhaps it is enough. The whole horrible truth dawned upon me and I staggered away. A week later Will insisted that he had stayed out his visit at the Hall, and would join the army for the campaign against the British on Long Island, near New York. The same day Major Bullbeggor sent me an express that he would stop at the Hall and get Will and myself to help organize a company for Washington's army. He and Barron rode in a little later, accompanied by Snake in the Grass. The Major's face was most peculiarity marked and tattooed by the explosion of the grenadier's musket at the Great Bridge fight, and my mother hardly recognized him. We made our preparations for departure within a few hours, and, accompanied by Sam and Snake, rode away from the Hall. All the field hands were grouped at the end of the carriage drive to wish us good-bye, while my sweet wife Rose and poor mother stood on the verandah and bade us a tearful farewell. God knows how my heart went out to that dear wife, as I saw her standing there with the sunshine playing on her hair and her eyes moist. But she smiled bravely and waved her handkerchief to us, and Snake nodded furiously in return until we rode slowly out of sight. +-------------------------------------------------+ |Transcriber's note: | | | |Obvious typographic errors have been corrected. | | | +-------------------------------------------------+