my reason for
not sending the letter with my reply to it. You will certainly give me
credit for candor in telling you all that my wife said. However, it is
so easily answered that I need not fear to intrust you with it.

Yours, for the slave,
A. FREEMAN NORTH.

P.S. After all, I concluded to retain this, and wait till my wife had
made what use she desired of the letter, that I might be sure and return
it to you safely. In the mean time, I have changed the papers. How
irresistible a pleading woman is, especially a wife. Her very want of
logic makes her more so, when we are good-natured. She came upon me with
just such another supplication a few mornings since. As soon as she
awoke, she said, "Husband, do please have our parlor window-sashes let
down from the top." "For ventilation?" said I. "Yes," said she,
"partly;" but I saw that she smiled. "What has made you think of it so
suddenly?" said I. "Do you not want to catch some more canaries?" said
she. "I suspect," said I, "that you would like to have ours escape."
"Perhaps," said she, "that would be a relief to you from your present
embarrassment." Then I saw that all this was banter. She wished to teaze
me a little. The truth is, I have two fine singing canaries and a
mocking-bird. Some of my pro-slavery friends delight to pester me about
them. They say that they mean to issue a habeas corpus, and take them
before Justice Bird, (who, you know, queerly enough, happens to be
United States Commissioner,) and inquire if they be not restrained of
their freedom. I tell them that man has dominion over all the fowls of
the air. But they say, "Then might makes right! Is it not a fine thing
that such a lover of liberty and friend of freedom and enemy of
oppression should keep those little prisoners for his selfish
gratification. Come, be a practical emancipationist to the extent of
your ability; set the South an example; break every yoke." "They are
better off with me," said I; "the hawks or cats would catch them, or
they would die from exposure." "Expediency!" said one of them; "do
justice, if the heavens fall." "Fye at _justitia_!" said one, who
pretended to take my part. "_Ruat coelum_, Let them rush to heaven,"
replied the other. "Parse _coelum_, please, sir," said my boy in the
Academy. "Yes, past the ceiling," said the lawyer, pretending to
misunderstand him; "that's right, my son;"--and more wretched punning of
the same sort. Hence Mrs. North's pretended supplication