y make a home, and are so fond of it that
they prefer it, squalid though it be, to the comparative ease and luxury
of a shifting, roaming life. Well, the emancipated slaves, in coming
North, left old associations behind them, and the love for the past was
so strong that they could not find much beauty in the new life so
suddenly opened to them. Thousands of the disappointed, huddled together
in camps, fretted and pined like children for the "good old times." In
visiting them in the interests of the Relief Society of which I was
president, they would crowd around me with pitiful stories of distress.
Often I heard them declare that they would rather go back to slavery in
the South, and be with their old masters, than to enjoy the freedom of
the North. I believe they were sincere in these declarations, because
dependence had become a part of their second nature, and independence
brought with it the cares and vexations of poverty.

I was very much amused one day at the grave complaints of a good old,
simple-minded woman, fresh from a life of servitude. She had never
ventured beyond a plantation until coming North. The change was too
radical for her, and she could not exactly understand it. She thought,
as many others thought, that Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln were the government,
and that the President and his wife had nothing to do but to supply the
extravagant wants of every one that applied to them. The wants of this
old woman, however, were not very extravagant.

"Why, Missus Keckley," said she to me one day, "I is been here eight
months, and Missus Lingom an't even give me one shife. Bliss God,
childen, if I had ar know dat de Government, and Mister and Missus
Government, was going to do dat ar way, I neber would 'ave comed here in
God's wurld. My old missus us't gib me two shifes eber year."

I could not restrain a laugh at the grave manner in which this good old
woman entered her protest. Her idea of freedom was two or more old
shifts every year. Northern readers may not fully recognize the pith of
the joke. On the Southern plantation, the mistress, according to
established custom, every year made a present of certain under-garments
to her slaves, which articles were always anxiously looked forward to,
and thankfully received. The old woman had been in the habit of
receiving annually two shifts from her mistress, and she thought the
wife of the President of the United States very mean for overlooking
this established custo