Then he told me about his wife, how beautiful she was;
and how a trader, a real mean man, wanted to buy her, and that he had
begged his master not to sell her; but it was no use. She had to go; but
he was glad of one thing; the trader was dead, and his wife had got a
place in the city with a very nice lady, and he hoped to see her when
he went to New Orleans. Pa, I wonder how slavery came to be. I should
hate to belong to anybody, wouldn't you, Pa?"
"Why, yes, darling, but then the negroes are contented, and wouldn't
take their freedom, if you would give it to them."
"I don't know about that, Pa; there was Mr. Le Grange's Peter. Mr. Le
Grange used to dress him so fine and treat him so well that he thought
no one would ever tempt Peter to leave him; and he came North with him
every year for three or four summers, and he always made out that he was
afraid of the abolitionists--bobolitionists he used to call them--and
Mr. Le Grange just believed that Peter was in earnest, and somehow he
got Mrs. Le Grange to bring his wife North to wait on her. And when they
both got here, they both left; and Mrs. Le Grange had to wait on
herself, until she got another servant. She told me she had got enough
of the North, and never wanted to see it again so long as she lived;
that she wouldn't have taken three thousand dollars for them.
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