ated with the wooden
chimney; and the floors were in most cases damp and bare. Streets,
fancifully designated, divided the settlement irregularly; but the
tenements were now all deserted save one, where I found a whole family
of "contrabands" or fugitive slaves. These wretched beings, seven in
number, had escaped from a plantation in Albemarle county, and
travelling stealthily by night, over two hundred miles of precipitous
country, reached the Federal lines on the thirteenth day. The husband
said that his name was "Jeems," and that his wife was called "Kitty;"
that his youngest boy had passed the mature age of eight months, and
that the "big girl, Rosy," was "twelve years Christmas comin'." While
the troops remained at Langley's, the man was employed at seventy-five
cents a week to attend to an officer's horse. Kitty and Rose cooked and
washed for soldiers, and the boys ran errands to Washington and
return,--twenty-five miles! The eldest boy, Jefferson, had been given
the use of a crippled team-horse, and traded in newspapers, but having
confused ideas of the relative value of coins, his profits were only
moderate. The nag died before the troops removed, and a sutler, under
pretence of securing their passage to the North, disappeared with the
little they had saved. They were quite destitute now, but looked to the
future with no foreboding, and huddled together in the straw, made a
picture of domestic felicity that impressed me greatly with the
docility, contentment, and unfailing good humor of their dusky tribe.
The eyes of the children were large and lustrous, and they revealed the
clear pearls beneath their lips as they clung bashfully to their
mother's lap. The old lady was smoking a clay pipe; the man running over
some castaway jackets and boots. I remarked particularly the broad
shoulders and athletic arms of the woman, whose many childbirths had
left no traces upon her comeliness. She asked me, wistfully: "Masser,
how fur to de nawf?"

"A long way," said I, "perhaps two hundred miles."

"Lawd!" she said, buoyantly--"is dat all? Why, Jeems, couldn't we foot
it, honey?"

"You a most guv out before, ole 'oman," he replied; "got a good ruff
over de head now. Guess de white massar won't let um starve."

I tossed some coppers to the children and gave each a sandwich.

"You get up dar, John Thomas!" called the man vigorously; "you tank de
gentleman, Jefferson, boy! I wonda wha your manners is. Tank you,
massar! kn