sh principles flourished even under the respectable nose of Father
Abraham, I had endeavored to walk discreetly, and curb my unruly
member; looking about me with all my eyes, the while, and saving up the
result of my observations for future use. I had not been there a week
before the neglected, devil-may care expression in many of the faces
about me, seemed an urgent appeal to leave nursing white bodies, and
take some care for these black souls. Much as the lazy boys and saucy
girls tormented me, I liked them, and found that any show of interest
or friendliness brought out the better traits which live in the most
degraded and forsaken of us all. I liked their cheerfulness, for the
dreariest old hag, who scrubbed all day in that pestilential steam,
gossipped and grinned all the way out, when night set her free from
drudgery. The girls romped with their dusky sweethearts, or tossed
their babies, with the tender pride that makes mother-love a beautifier
to the homeliest face. The men and boys sang and whistled all day long;
and often, as I held my watch, the silence of the night was sweetly
broken by some chorus from the street, full of real melody, whether the
song was of heaven, or of hoe-cakes; and, as I listened, I felt that we
never should doubt nor despair concerning a race which, through such
griefs and wrongs, still clings to this good gift, and seems to solace
with it the patient hearts that wait and watch and hope until the end.

I expected to have to defend myself from accusations of prejudice
against color; but was surprised to find things just the other way, and
daily shocked some neighbor by treating the blacks as I did the whites.
The men would swear at the "darkies," would put two gs into negro, and
scoff at the idea of any good coming from such trash. The nurses were
willing to be served by the colored people, but seldom thanked them,
never praised, and scarcely recognized them in the street; whereat the
blood of two generations of abolitionists waxed hot in my veins, and,
at the first opportunity, proclaimed itself, and asserted the right of
free speech as doggedly as the irrepressible Folsom herself.

Happening to catch up a funny little black baby, who was toddling about
the nurses' kitchen, one day, when I went down to make a mess for some
of my men, a Virginia woman standing by elevated her most prominent
features, with a sniff of disapprobation, exclaiming:

"Gracious, Miss P.! how can you? I've bee