Читать книгу Autobiography of a Female Slave - Martha Griffith Browne - Страница 5

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THE YANKEE SCHOOL-MISTRESS—HER PHILOSOPHY—THE AMERICAN ABOLITIONISTS.

The family with whom I now found a home, consisted of Mr. Peterkin and his two daughters, Jane and Matilda, and a son, John, much younger than the ladies.

The death of Mrs. Peterkin had occurred about three years before I went to live with them. The girls had been very well educated by a Miss Bradly, from Massachusetts, a spinster of "no particular age." From her, the Misses Peterkin learned to set a great value upon correct and elegant language. She was the model and instructress of the country round; for, under her jurisdiction, nearly all the farmers' daughters had been initiated into the mysteries of learning. Scattered about, over the house, I used to frequently find odd leaves of school-books, elementary portions of natural sciences, old readers, story-books, novels, &c. These I eagerly devoured; but I had to be very secret about it, studying by dying embers, reading by moonlight, sun-rise, &c. Had I been discovered, a severe punishment would have followed. Miss Jane used to say, "a literary negro was disgusting, not to be tolerated." Though she quarrelled with the vulgar talk and bad pronunciation of her father, he was made of too rough material to receive a polish; and, though Miss Bradly had improved the minds of the girls, her efforts to soften their hearts had met with no success. They were the same harsh, cold and selfish girls that she had found them. It was Jane's boast that she had whipped more negroes than any other girl of her age. Matilda, though less severe, had still a touch of the tigress.

This family lived in something like "style." They were famed for their wealth and social position throughout the neighborhood. The house was a low cottage structure, with large and airy apartments; an arching piazza ran the whole length of the building, and around its trellised balustrade the clematis vine twined in rich luxuriance. A primrose-walk led up to the door, and the yard blossomed like a garden, with the fairest flowers. It was a very Paradise of homes; pity, ah pity 'twas, that human fiends marred its beauty. There the sweet flowers bloomed, the young birds warbled, pure springs gushed forth with limpid joy—there truly, "All, save the spirit of man, was divine." The traveller often paused to admire the tasteful arrangements of the grounds, the neat and artistic plan of the house, and the thorough "air" of everything around. It seemed to bespeak refined minds, and delicate, noble natures; but oh, the flowers were no symbols of the graces of their hearts, for the dwellers of this highly-adorned spot were people of coarse natures, rough and cruel as barbarians. The nightly stars and the gentle moon, the deep glory of the noontide, or the blowing of twilight breezes over this chosen home, had no power to ennoble or elevate their souls. Acts of diabolical cruelty and wickedness were there perpetrated without the least pang of remorse or regret. Whilst the white portion of the family were revelling in luxury, the slaves were denied the most ordinary necessaries. The cook, who prepared the nicest dainties, the most tempting viands, had to console herself with a scanty diet, coarse enough to shock even a beggar. What wonder, then, if the craving of the stomach should allow her no escape from downright theft! Who is there that could resist? Where is the honesty that could not, under such circumstances, find an argument to justify larceny?

Every evening Miss Bradly came to spend an hour or so with them. The route from the school to her boarding-house wound by Mr. Peterkin's residence, and the temptation to talk to the young ladies, who were emphatically the belles of the neighborhood, was too great for resistance. This lady was of that class of females which we meet in every quarter of the globe,—of perfectly kind intentions, yet without the independence necessary for their open and free expression. Bred in the North, and having from her infancy imbibed the spirit of its free institutions, in her secret soul she loathed the abomination of slavery, every pulse of her heart cried out against it, yet with a strange compliance she lived in its midst, never once offering an objection or an argument against it. It suited her policy to laugh with the pro-slavery man at the fanaticism of the Northern Abolitionist. With a Judas-like hypocrisy, she sold her conscience for silver; and for a mess of pottage, bartered the noble right of free expression. 'Twas she, base renegade from a glorious cause, who laughed loudest and repeated wholesale libels and foul aspersions upon the able defenders of abolition—noble and generous men, lofty philanthropists, who are willing, for the sake of principle, to wear upon their brows the mark of social and political ostracism! But a day is coming, a bright millennial day, when the names of these inspired prophets shall be inscribed proudly upon the litany of freedom; when their noble efforts for social reform shall be told in wondering pride around the winter's fire. Then shall their fame shine with a glory which no Roman tradition can eclipse. Freed from calumny, the names of Parker, Seward and Sumner, will be ranked, as they deserve to be, with Washington, Franklin and Henry. All glory to the American Abolitionists. Though they must now possess their souls in patience, and bear the brand of social opprobrium, yet will posterity accord them the meed of everlasting honor. They "who sow in dishonor shall be raised in glory." Already the watchman upon the tower has discerned the signal. A light beameth in the East, which no man can quench. A fire has broken forth, which needs only a breath to fan it into a flame. The eternal law of sovereign right will vindicate itself. In the hour of feasting and revelry the dreadful bolt of retribution fell upon Gomorrah.