that I would, if possible, get an extension of their
exemption from work after child-bearing. The close of her argument was
concise and forcible. 'Missis, we hab um piccaninny--tree weeks in de
ospital, and den right out upon the hoe again--_can we strong_ dat way,
missis? No!' And truly I do not see that they can. This poor creature had
had eight children and two miscarriages. All her children were dead but
one. Another of my visitors was a divinely named but not otherwise divine
Venus; it is a favourite name among these sable folk, but, of course, must
have been given originally in derision. The Aphrodite in question was a
dirt-coloured (convenient colour I should say for these parts) mulatto. I
could not understand how she came on this property, for she was the
daughter of a black woman and the overseer of an estate to which her
mother formerly belonged, and from which I suppose she was sold,
exchanged, or given, as the case may be, to the owners of this plantation.
She was terribly crippled with rheumatism, and came to beg for some
flannel. She had had eleven children, five of whom had died, and two
miscarriages. As she took her departure the vacant space she left on the
other side of my writing table was immediately filled by another black
figure with a bowed back and piteous face, one of the thousand 'Mollies'
on the estate, where the bewildering redundancy of their name is avoided
by adding that of their husband; so when the question, 'Well, who are
you?' was answered with the usual genuflexion, and 'I'se Molly, missis!'
I, of course, went on with 'whose Molly?' and she went on to refer herself
to the ownership (under Mr. ---- and heaven) of one Tony, but proceeded to
say that he was not her _real_ husband. This appeal to an element of
reality in the universally accepted fiction which passes here by the title
of marriage surprised me; and on asking her what she meant, she replied
that her real husband had been sold from the estate for repeated attempts
to run away; he had made his escape several times, and skulked starving in
the woods and morasses, but had always been tracked and brought back, and
flogged almost to death, and finally sold as an incorrigible runaway. What
a spirit of indomitable energy the wretched man must have had to have
tried so often that hideously hopeless attempt to fly! I do not write you
the poor woman's jargon, which was ludicrous; for I cannot write you the
sighs, and tears, and piteous