Читать книгу A Woman's Life-Work — Labors and Experiences of Laura S. Haviland - Laura S. Haviland - Страница 26

During the first six years in our new home, there was no school within three miles of us, and all the privilege we enjoyed of this kind was a spelling lesson given daily to three of us, the two little girls of our nearest neighbor and myself. Our mothers pronounced the words for us alternately, at their house and ours. In this way we spelled our book through a number of times. This privilege, with four months in school previous to leaving Canada, proved a great blessing. As I possessed an insatiable thirst for knowledge, I borrowed all the easy readers I could find in the neighborhood. I was especially interested in memoirs of children and youth, which increased my frequent desire to become a Christian. I wished to read every book that came within my reach. I read a few of father's books, designed for more mature minds. I became deeply interested in John Woolman's history of the slave-trade, of the capture and cruel middle passage of negroes, and of the thousands who died on their voyage and were thrown into the sea to be devoured by sharks, that followed the slave-ship day after day. The pictures of these crowded slave-ships, with the cruelties of the slave system after they were brought to our country, often affected me to tears; and I often read until the midnight hour, and could not rest until I had read it twice through. My sympathies became too deeply enlisted for the poor negroes who were thus enslaved for time to efface.

The third or fourth I had ever seen of that race was an old man called Uncle Jeff. He seemed to serve any one who called upon him for chores, in our little village of Lockport, that grew up as by magic upon the Erie Canal. Uncle Jeff was frequently employed by merchants to cry off their stale articles on the street. At one time the old man, whose head was almost as white as wool, was crying, "Gentlemen and ladies' black silk stockin's of all colors for sale," holding them up to view as he passed along the street, followed by a group of boys crying out, "Nigger, nigger," and throwing grass and clay at him. At length he turned to these half-grown boys, looking very sad, as he said, "Boys, I am just as God made me, an' so is a toad." At this the boys slunk away; and I felt very indignant in seeing the men who were standing near only laugh, instead of sharply reproving those ill-behaved children.

Another colored man, named Ben, came to our town with a family who opened an inn. He was employed mostly in the kitchen, and while Ben was asleep on the kitchen floor, some rude boys put a quantity of powder in the back of his pants, and placing a slow match to it left the room, but watched the process of their diabolical sport through a window, and soon saw their victim blown up, it was said, nearly to the ceiling. His hips and body were so badly burned that he was never able to sit or stoop after this wicked act. He always had to walk with a cane, and whenever too weary to stand, was compelled to lie down, as his right hip and lower limb were stiffened. Yet little notice was taken of this reckless act, but to feed and poorly clothe this life-long cripple, as he went from house to house, because he was of that crushed and neglected race.