urse by the bedside stood,
Sore sobbing in her woe,
That so many sinners here should stay,
And the good and young should go.

"Dear nurse," said Eva, "I go home
To the happiest home of all;
Where never an evil thing will come,
And never a tear will fall.

"And I will hope each one to see,
That blessed home within;
Where Christ himself will set us free
From the bonds of death and sin."

Oh, swift and sad were the tears that fell,
As her gifts among them passed,
And Tom, he got the first fair curl,
And Topsy got the last.

But first and last alike were given,
With some words of love and prayer;
And it may be, hearts were helped to heaven,
By the links of that soft hair.

When Eva was dead and buried, Tom missed her sore, but he knew it was
the will of God, and tried to comfort his master. Mr. St. Clair intended
to set him free for Eva's sake. He was a kind man, but given to delay,
and one day a wicked man stabbed him in a coffee-house, when he was
trying to settle a quarrel. Mrs. St. Clair was a proud, hard-hearted
woman, who cared for nobody but herself. She sold all the negroes, and
Tom among them, to a cruel cotton planter, called Legree, and you shall
see how he behaved.

LEGREE STRIKING TOM.

Tom's good wife Chloe, far at home,
And his boys so blythe and black,
Are all working hard, in hopes to win
The dollars, to buy him back.

And George, who taught him long ago,
Has many a pleasant plan,
To pay his price, and set him free.
When he comes to be a man.

But little does that wicked man,
In his angry madness, know,
That God himself will take account
Of each cruel word and blow.

And children dear, who see him here,
At night and morning pray,
That you may never have aught like this
Laid up for the judgment day!

By the time all these things happened, George Shelby had grown up; but
when he came to buy back Tom, the pious, kindly negro, had been so
ill-treated by that cruel planter, because he tried to save the other
slaves from his evil temper, that he lay dying in an old shed; and there
was no law to punish th