eart of gold
And in dreams she loves and pets me,
As she did in days of old.

"Oh, my dear old colored mammy,
In the cabin far away,
Since you rocked me in the cradle
Seems forever and a day.
Yet in dreams I hear you crooning
Above my cradle nest;
'Sleep on, baby boy,
Mammy watches while you rest.'"

A white baby, whose mother was ill for months, was given to one of
these colored mothers to nurse. After the war the white family moved
west. As their child grew up the father and mother often told her
about Aunt Hannah, how she loved her, petted her, cooked for her, and
drove away her own pickaninnies to let "mammy's baby" sleep.

The girl, when she had grown to womanhood, heard that Aunt Hannah was
still living and she longed to see her devoted old colored mammy. Her
parents had the same desire, and with other attachments for the old
southern home, they went back to Georgia on a visit and to the village
where the old woman lived. She was sent for and the old black mammy
and the beautiful young girl faced each other. The young lady was
disappointed. She expected to see a nice, comely old woman, but there
she stod, crippled with rheumatism, gray headed, wrinkled, and poorly
clad. The old woman was surprised, for there before her stood a
beautiful young woman, with rosy cheeks, blue eyes, auburn locks and
queenly form. The father and mother stood near, with tears rolling
down their cheeks as memory came surging up like successive waves from
out a past hallowed to them, for they could see in that old woman the
health and strength of their child.

The old woman broke the silence, saying: "Is dat my chile? Is dat de
chile I loved and laid wake wif so many nights and cooked so many
sweet things for? Why, bless yo' heart, honey; dese old hands ust to
take yo' and hug yo' to dis bosom, but yo's too nice now for dese old
hands to eber touch agin."

The young girl said: "No, I'm not, Aunt Hannah. You shall take me in
your arms as when I was a little child," and she gave a bound into the
old woman's arms.

That does not mean social equality, but it does mean gratitude neither
condition nor color can ever bound. If the reciprocities of that old
woman and that beautiful girl were such as to weave enrichments into
both hearts, why should not all peoples, and all individuals, see in
all others but a multiplication of the one each of us is, and that
each is enhanced or diminished in value accordin