many miles around. They were thus
permitted to live together by the owners of Amelia, who realized how much
more valuable the children would be as a marketable group after some years
of such care and attention as the mother would be sure to bestow. Milly, as
she was familiarly called, reared the children, tilled the garden, and,
being especially handy with the needle, turned off many a job of sewing for
the family of her mistress. She was entirely ignorant so far as books go,
but Paul read the Bible to her when visiting his loved ones on Sunday and
what he explained she remembered and treasured up for comfort in her
moments of despair.

The older boys and girls were hired out in prominent families in the city
and by their intelligence, orderly conduct and other evidences of good
breeding came to be known far and wide as "The Edmondson Children," the
phrase being taken as descriptive of all that was excellent and desirable
in a slave. The one incurable grief of these humble parents was that in
bringing children into the world they were helping to perpetuate the
institution of slavery. The fear that any day might bring to them the cruel
pangs of separation and the terrible knowledge that their loved ones had
been condemned to the horrors of the auction block was with them always a
constant shadow, darkening each waking moment. More and ever more, they
were torn with anxiety for the future of the children and so they threw
themselves with increasing faith and dependence upon the Master of all, and
no visit of the children was so hurried or full of other matters but that a
few moments were reserved for prayer. At their departure, one after another
was clasped to the mother's breast and always this earnest admonition
followed them, "Be good children and the blessed Lord will take care of
you." Louisa and Joseph, the two youngest, were still at home when there
occurred events in which several of their older brothers and sisters took
so prominent a part and which are here to be related.

The incidents of this narrative which are reflected in its title are
contemporary with and in a measure resultant from the revolution out of
which came the establishment of the first French Republic and the expulsion
of Louis-Philippe in 1848. The citizens of the United States were
felicitating their brothers across the water upon the achievement of so
desirable a result. In Washington especially, the event was joyously
acclaimed. Public meeti