t
go down to the quarters this very day, and see if she has things
comfortable. She's getting old, and we must do well by her in her old
age. And you, Annie, you mustn't mind those other things. We mustn't
borrow trouble. And we can't help it, you know; and we mustn't cry and
fret for what we can't help. What's the use? It don't do any good, you
see, and only makes a bad matter worse. Must take things as they come,
in this world of ours, Annie;" and the Master thought thus to assuage
the tide of bitter recollection in the breast of his down-trodden
bond-woman, and divert her mind from the painful future before her and
her darling child. In vain. The tears still fell over the brow of the
baby, flowing from the deep fountain of sorrow and tenderness that
springs forth only from a mother's heart.

"Oh, Massa," she ventured timidly to say amid her sobs, "please don't
never part baby and me."

"Be a good girl, Annie," said he, "and mind your work, and don't be
borrowing trouble. We'll take good care of you. You've got a nice baby,
that's a fact,--the smartest little thing on the whole plantation; see
how well you can raise her now."

The fond heart of the trembling mother leaped back again to its
happiness at the praise bestowed upon her baby; and taking up the little
blossom, she laid it with pride upon her bosom, murmuring, "Years of
good times we'll have, sweety, afore sich dark days come,--mebbe they'll
never come to you and me."

Alas, vain hope! Scarcely a single year had passed, when one day she
came to the cot to look at the little sleeper, and lo, her treasure was
gone! The master had found it convenient, in making a sale of some
field hands, to THROW IN this infant, by way of closing a satisfactory
bargain.

None can tell, but those who have gone through the trying experience,
how hard it is for a mother to part with her child when God calls it
away by death. But oh, how much harder it must be to have a babe torn
away from the maternal arms by the stern hand of oppression, and flung
out on the cruel tide of selfishness and passion! Let us weep, dear
children, for the poor slave mothers who have to endure such wrongs.

I will not undertake to describe the distress of this poor woman when
the knowledge of her loss burst upon her. It was as when the tall
tree is shivered by the lightning's blast. Her strong frame shook
and trembled beneath the shock; her eye rolled and burned in tearless
anguish, and her voice