as the children one would see in a northern village school. Their faces averaged to express as much intelligence. Their docility was very great. Colored children seldom seem to be nervous or restless. Their ability to sit still and wait till the moment of movement arrives contrasts surprisingly with the expenditure of force in wiggling to which juvenile Yankees are prone.

Mr. H. had a softly modulated voice, and spoke with sufficient accuracy of grammar and pronounciation. His man

ner was singularly calculated to soothe the children. He appealed habitually to their moral sense, and gently insisted on the necessity that they should learn self-control, and that they should be guided by a sense of honor in the performance of their duties. His attainments enable him to prepare scholars to enter the college at Atlanta. One boy who went there from Mr. C.'s school was the son of a man who was especially zealous to provide his children with everything which he thought would benefit them. He had, moreover, some intelligent ideas on the subject; and in starting a little private library in his own home, among the first books he purchased were the "Life of Frederick Douglass" and Knight's edition of Shakespeare.

Mr. H. is persuaded that the ordinary education of the colored people in the South should be supplemented by a thorough industrial training. I took part on one occasion in a conversation between him and an elder in the Methodist Episcopal church, and was surprised to see how clearly these men comprehended the condition of their people, understood their needs, and perceived the influences that would aid them. They evidently knew on what bases of character and training it is alone possible to erect a solid and lasting civilization. There was nothing fanciful or extravagant in their views. The elder admitted frankly that the first effect of freedom had been to make the boys disinclined to work, and he maintained that this tendency must be overcome while they are still in school and while the authority of the frequently incompetent parent can be supported by that of the teacher.

Right-minded people should be able to lay aside all prejudices as to the greater desirability of possessing a white or a black skin, and consider humanely the situation of a man or woman of African descent who, after obtaining an education, goes to live in a southern town. It is not probable that such colored persons will find any associates whose mental life is on a plane with theirs. If they are of slave extraction, they are almost inevitably too poor to buy many books. They have spent their youth in the struggle to acquire learning, not property. They are not likely to find employment which insures them large incomes. There may be a library in town; they are debarred from its privileges. There may be lectures or entertainments in the place; they can attend them only by submitting to conditions. which mark them publicly as belonging to an inferior, as well as isolated class. If they desire to make better the community in which they live, in any way outside of regular church methods, they must expect little aid or recognition from those of their fellow-citizens who, by virtue of their opportunities, ought to be most able to help them with counsel and sympathy. In cases where moral and mental stagnation does not follow this complete isolation from the intellectual and ethical and gracious life of the world, it would seem that the native impulse toward good must be very strong. In point of fact, it has been in just such environments of discouragement as have been described, that I have seen manifested some of the noblest and sweetest qualities of character. On the other hand, this separation of the educated negro from the society of educated white men tends often to the growth of vanity in the black man, who, being forced to associate chiefly with his inferiors, naturally comes to over-estimate his superiority. It is still to be proven, moreever, whether the desire for education, which has thus far been very strong among the freed people, will continue to influence them powerfully, if they find that education does not open for them the opportunity to lead congenial lives and to follow freely the higher avocations. The lower class of colored students probably have not yet perceived the difficulty

of their situation so clearly as to be discouraged. They still believe that education is the key that will unlock the door of a worthy future for their race. Yet I remember being much impressed by the fate of one man. He was a student from Hampton and, I think, a graduate. He had so little negro blood in his veins that his hair was pale yellow, his eyes light, his features straight, his lips thin, and his complexion that of an Anglo Saxon blonde. He was a teacher, but found his salaries so small that he gave up his schools and became a waiter. A northern lady who had taught the freed people for twenty-five years, lately found one of her pupils in a depressed state of mind. What was the use, he asked, of his trying to learn, when he must go back to the fields to work beside his ignorant comrades?

To overcome, in a measure, the mental and moral stagnation among the colored inhabitants of one southern district, a free library was started not long ago, by some disinterested parties. It is, so far as the writer knows, the only institution of its kind in the state where it is situated. It incurs no running expenses, because one colored man gives its accommodation, rent free, and acts as its librarian without charge. It belongs, however, to an association of colored trustees, who manage its affairs when any management is needed. It contains between seven and eight hundred volumes. It is open to whites as well as to blacks, but with the exception of some northerners, no whites have availed themselves of its privileges. Books are distributed weekly, and seventy-five to a hundred are issued at a time. After a year's existence, no book had been lost or destroyed. The readers are, of course, nearly all juvenile, since few of the negro adults in the region can read. Stories are most desired, but travels, history, biography, and poetry are also read. Romola has been asked for by a reader, and Little Women is especially beloved.

I had an opportunity at one time to see something of a school established in the South by missionary effort from the North. A few white Southerners, prominent men in the county where it is situated, were instrumental in having the

re

school located there, and contributed some aid in the purchase of land for the site. The buildings of this school were burned by incendiaries, when it was located in another town. The teachers are northern women, who say they have been politely treated by the native ladies and gentlemen in their present home. About thirty girls are taken as boarding pupils. The fees are low, but in many cases course is necessarily had to different charities, to support these scholars. The boarding pupils receive some industrial training, being taught housework, plain sewing, and dressmaking. They manifest a very docile and tractable disposition, causing their teachers no trouble whatever in matters of discipline. Connected with the institution is a day school, which is open to both boys and girls. The attendance is large, the fees varying from fifty cents to a dollar a month. Such scholars as I have known express a decidedly enthusiastic interest in the school, and a strong attachment to the teachers. One or two of the native teachers in the town have been pupils here.

I attended the exercises one day when some lads were rehearsing for a celebration of the virtues and deeds of George Washington. Each boy carried a United States flag. They were learning to love the flag. The scene was intensely pathetic and suggestive. Many things had before this day overcome in my mind that sense of strangeness which had at first caused the colored people of the South to seem to me like aliens. The sight of these dark-skinned boys with their flags quite effaced all such impression. I had already learned that the sentiment of patriotism is strong in the black southerner, that he feels himself to be an American, that he believes that all his hopes and chances are bound up in those of the nation. I looked on these young men, and felt that the nation had no members upon whom it could place more reliance than upon them, if it did not wilfully thrust them from their rightful place as constituent factors in its body, and alienate their spirit from its purposes. They are a part of the American people, as truly as are the whites, North and South; and the question is serious whether it is wise to

trade, had at length raised him to proprietorship and high standing in the busi

ness.

The negro followed the young man at a respectful distance, but now and then quickened his steps and drew nearer, only to fall back again, betraying by the irresolute action a desire to address his companion, ungratified, probably, from distrust or fear. But as they reached the crest of the hill, and approached a low cabin, thatched in a fashion evidently copied from the English peasant ancestors of the owner, but inhabited by his half dozen slaves, the moving lips of the negro parted in speech.

"Massa Robin, Mark hab something dat he am mighty cur'us to tell ye."

the

Mark could not see the scowl of impatience on the face of the apprentice, drawing together his heavy eyebrows, and giving an ugly, animal look to the mouth; and, feeling that he must arouse curiosity of his hearer by a plunge to the depth of his story, he continued in a tone conveying both importance and mystery: "Massa Robin, eber see der devil? Mark see him hisself, sure nuf, last night after candle light."

The negro caught sight of the youth's profile; the scowl had given place to an expression of indifferent interest, and Mark hastened to relate the story of a demon that had sprung about the cellar of the warehouse they had closed, where he slept, with such sinister and manifest designs on his body and soul, that the fellow's credulous mind had retained a most vivid impression of his nightmare, and he more than half believed it real. Indeed, so thoroughly frightened was he that it had seemed prudent to discuss the apparition with no one, lest his dreaded majesty's displeasure should be further provoked. But the hope that Robin, whose knowledge of the Evil One, as well as of evil ways, the black people round about never doubted, might dissipate his fears had driven him to speak. He had not finished before the apprentice struck off from the beaten path and stopped at the foot of the King's Oak. The tree merited the name because of its towering height and its isolation. It had also a legal title, for the arms of

England were emblazoned on its trunk, in accordance with a royal prerogative of appropriating, by this sign, trees promising in mature growth good timber for King George the Second's ships of war. By a crooked freak this oak had disappointed the ship carpenters and secured for itself a venerated old age, until it should be cut down by the scythe of Time, an event which, judging from the unsteady sway of its dead limbs in the wintry wind, and the increasing numbers of woodpeckers that frequented it in summer, was not far distant.

Lean

The black finished his tale by relating how he had leaped from his mattress and fled out into the night, and now looked anxiously into the face of Robin for an interpretation of his dream. ing against the trunk of the tree, the apprentice was idly snapping in pieces a rotten branch and, with a jerk, flinging the bits far from him. Nevertheless, he had followed the story with close attention. His countenance now feigned an expression of horror and alarm, and with vividness and cleverly counterfeited credence he gave an ingenious story of a like appearance of the Evil One to Pete, one of Dr. Rand's negroes, in consequence of which Pete had died in convulsions; and, having harrowed his hearer's imagination, already so well fertilized with the vision of the previous night, he continued by voice, gesture, question and show of sympathy to heighten his excitement and strengthen his belief. Cold sweat started on Mark's face, and his twitching throat choked his utterance. Nervously pulling at the waist rope which bound his tattered sailcloth overalls, and striving to button his blue cotton shirt at the neck, where the button was wanting, he stared open-mouthed, a picture of ignorance and credulity. At length he mastered himself sufficiently to ask piteously, what he ought to do.

"Mind ye don't anger the powerful one, if he calls ye again. Tarry and do his bidding, or ye'll die like Pete, with spasms. God have mercy on your poor black soul!"

Hastily brushing the clinging scraps of bark from the loose sleeves of his homespun shirt, and tightening the buckles

which held his blue knit stockings to buckskin half-clothes, the apprentice turned his back on the slave, and made rapidly towards the mansion house.

Perhaps the slaves in the northern colonies, being very few in number, felt the ignominy and hopelessness of servitude the keener and rebelled against their fate more earnestly. The numerous trials on record for thefts, arson, and murder attest that they were debased and vicious beyond their southern brethren. Indeed the selfish motive doubtless reinforced the ethical, when, soon after the Revolution, the northern states began to free their slaves.

As a whole, Captain Russell's slaves were exceptionally hard to handle. They lived so near Boston that, longing for its delights, they were constantly discontented. This only served to aggravate the acknowledged severity of their master. Mark was a comparatively recent purchase, an importation from the West Indies, but he had already learned to hate his master bitterly, though too good-hearted and easy-going to join in the plots his fellow servants were constantly hatching to bring about the master's discomfort and ruin. They had once set fire to his warehouses, hoping so to embarrass him that he must sell them to some slaveowner in the town. However, Mark's ignorance and extreme superstition made him a ready tool in the hands of the unscrupulous. He had been so often used as a cat's paw that his reputation did his character injustice. Robin knew this well, and when he turned from the path, ostensibly to rest under the King's Oak, it was in response to an inspiration worthy of a Jesuit, and evil enough to be a boast for Satan himself. Robin loved his master's daughter, Molly. She had promised to marry him, but without her father's knowledge, much less his consent. If the master was dead, Robin might obtain the daughter's portion and her hand at the same time. Could he, by working on Mark's superstition, bring him to put the old man out of the way?

The mansion house was a large, rambling, two-story structure, with unpainted weather-board sides, built about the log-cabin of the owner's father. The

heavy hip roof, moss-grown, shingletwisted, and awry at the corners, was pierced by three dormer windows in the front, and topped by two stone chimneys so massive that the structure seemed rather built for the chimneys than the chimneys for the structure.

Six feet or more above the gutter ran a railed platform, painted white, which, reached by a scuttle, served as a main top for the old captain, who was wont to be the first to sight his own vessels.

Robin passed through a deep garden, grown up with English elms and shrubs, and entered the porch covered with woodbine, and bounded on either side by now leafless rose-bushes, which reached quite to the sill of the lower windows. He hung his fur cap on a wooden peg in one of the axe-hewn beams which supported the floor above the hall, and entered the large room on the left. An assumed expression of deference and respect sat ill upon him, but it was maintained in spite of the greeting he received:

"Late, late, always late.

Get

ye aft to yer victuals with the niggers. I'll have none of ye!"

The old master, who spoke, sat in a stiff-backed arm-chair, propped with pillows, suffering from acute rheumatism. He was scarcely able to raise himself, with his daughter Molly's help, to sip the water gruel on the long kitchen table before him.

"Hold yer peace, give me no more of yer smooth-tongued lies," he continued, as the young man ventured to frame an excuse. "I see ye from the deck above, with me glass, taking ease in the shadow, while Mark did two men's work, and 'twas an hour by the sundial."

Unseen by the old man, the apprentice made a quick sign to the young girl who stood behind her father's chair. Her eyelids closed and then were raised again from beautiful brown eyes, trustful and true, full of sympathy and faith, in token of assent. The youth turned and went out as he had come, followed by the angry sneers of the invalid, who, querulous with age and suffering, continued to berate him.