roups on every street ready to
pounce upon and disperse any assemblage of black citizens upon the
streets. The ringing of church bells, the call to praise only served to
intensify the fear of colored worshippers whose meetings had been
previously broken up by armed mobs. These dusky worshippers, devout as
they were, had not the faith sufficient to enable them to discern the
smiling face of God through the clouds which hung over them.
Demoralized, dejected, disconsolate, they dodged about here and there
like sheep having no shepherd. Just as the bell in the tall steeple of
the old Baptist Church on Market street was making its last long and
measured peals there crept out from behind the old Marine Hospital a
woman leading a little child by the hand. Both were wretchedly clad.
Thrown about the woman's shoulders was an old quilt. Her shoes were tied
with strings, which were wrapped around the soles to keep from leaving
her feet. Her skirt, tattered and torn, hung dejectedly about her scant
form. The child, barefooted and with only one piece to hide its
nakedness, dodged behind its mother as it walked to keep the wind from
striking with its full force its emaciated body. The woman, though young
in years, was old and haggard in face. Her woolly hair, unkempt and
sprinkled with gray, the result of just three weeks of privation,
apprehension and dread, bulged out from beneath the old shawl which
covered her head. At the northwest corner of the hospital fence she
paused, looked cheerfully toward her own cottage, but a few blocks away,
then slowly walked on in that direction, the child toddling at her
side. "What is the bells ringin' for, mamma?" asked the little one. "It
ain't Sunday." "It's Thanksgiving Day, and we usually go to church on
that day," answered the mother, slowly. "What is Thanksgiving Day?" "It
is a day set apart by the President for the people to assemble and give
thanks for--for--blessings--received during the year, my child." This
last answer tore that disconsolate mother's heart till it bled. She had
reached the gate of her cottage, from which she had fled on the night of
November 10th to escape insult and murder. A white woman sat upon the
steps knitting, her children playing about the yard. The colored woman
stood and momentarily gazed in amazement at the intruder upon her
premises. "Well, whart du you wannt?" said the white one, looking up
from her work and then down again. "What do I want?" returned the
c