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expand2003 (1)
1Author:  Hall Baynard Rush 1798-1863Add
 Title:  Frank Freeman's barber shop  
 Published:  2003 
 Subjects:  University of Virginia Library, Text collection | UVA-LIB-Text | University of Virginia Library, Early American Fiction, 1789-1875 | UVA-LIB-EarlyAmFict1789-1875 
 Description: Our southern coast, as the reader doubtless knows, is fringed with a net-work of islands, many of which have not yet a growth sufficient for introduction to a school atlas. Some of these miniature lands are not inhabited and rarely visited; while others are, at certain seasons, resorts for “marooning”—a picnic sort of life passed for weeks in extemporaneous sheds of boards and canvas. A few of the islets are large enough for one or more plantations; and, hence, are like immense gardens in which are embowered lordly mansions with spacious lawns in front and comfortable “quarters” at convenient distances—a negro village of neat cabins, usually white-washed, and always each surrounded with its own domain of truck-patch, and boasting of its henhouse, pig-pen, and other offices. “Nephew, I send $2,000—I know your scruples. But I will positively take no denial. See here— don't refuse the additional—I'll pitch it in the fire, if you send any back. You'll have it hard enough with the remaining $2,000. “Edward, my dearest:—May the Lord sustain you!—and He will. But we have both been long prepared for this:—Dr. Jordan thinks there is no hope of my life beyond next summer! Edward! can we not meet once—the last? And your dear wife—my much beloved—my only daughter, since Sophia preceded me home!—will she not come again? Ah! Edward! if I might go to my rest— in your arms and hers! “Edward! oh, Edward!—I would—but, no! no! you never can believe me now! I call God to witness—I never, no never, loved any but you—I love none other now! By the unutterable agony of my frenzied soul, do not for God's sake, oh! do not curse me!.... Good God! can it be possible! I did not mean it! I know not why I did it! I have not—I have not! I will not! Oh! say, Edward! is it not a dream?—wake me from it! Forgive, forgive, forgive me! Bid me come and lie down at your feet and die! Call me only once by the dear name—and then kill me! Oh! why, why did you not command me to stay ever near you! You were to blame—no! no! how dare I reproach? One trial, Edward—but one! I would give the universe—I would give my life—God knows I would—to stand where I did for a moment.... Vain! I cannot—cannot!—I am going mad!.... But I am not—I am not so fallen! I will not so fall! I will leap into the sea first!..... Stay! don't curse me! Pray for me! Yes, yes, I that laughed at prayer, now with deep groanings of my soul, and with my face in the dust call on you, Edward! my wronged husband, and as a minister of Christ, to pray for me. I am penitent—I have not sinned—I will die rather! I will plunge into the ocean. Oh! dear Edward!—husband, dear husband! and for the last, I write those sacred words— farewell, farewell!” “Rev. and very dear Brother:—I remain, this year, at Point Lookout, where we shall establish our new paper. It is to be called “The Scarifier and Renovator.” I expect to edit awhile, myself. We'll make an impression on the soul-killers. Besides, I can do a vast amount of good here, in other ways. I have been instrumental, by the blessing of God, in freeing more than twenty-five, since my last, in March! Most of them, with a little help from my secret assistants in the lower countries, succeeded (you will be rejoiced to learn) in bringing off property enough to pay expenses, and afford a handsome remuneration. I forwarded the poor fugitives to the old fellow—you know where. “Master!—a dear name yet—though I appear as a traitor!—a name I shall ever love, even if my new friends(?) constrain me to use their cold language. Yes, dear master! you knew me better than I know myself: you would never let me vow! Oh! I remember that one sermon—`Is thy servant a dog, that he should do this thing?' They look on me as noble and free!—alas!—I feel myself a slave now, and worse than before; I have become in my own eyes `a dog!'—I have done it. “Rev. and dear Sharpinton:—My soul is fairly on fire—it fairly cries out, `Away with the accursed slavers from the earth!' Oh, heavens! doctor, they've killed our Somerville; and in defence of his press! Freedom!—where's our right to publish the truth—the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? Don't tell me of freedom! Union or no union! down with the gag-loving, press-muzzling, slavery-aiding, colonization-scheming, God-defying, double-dyed, negro-lashing, humanity-crushing, base, grovelling, truckling villains, that, in face of the sun, will assault and pull down a printing-office, and pitch the types into the street, and shoot down, spite of law, justice, and rights of man, the noble Somerville, and standing to defend his rights! It hadn't ought to be the 19th century! no, it hadn't ought to!— I know it cannot be done; but, still, follow me, ye friends of the poor, down-trodden, brute-degraded, blood-squeezed, and sweat-defrauded sons of Africa! oh! ye men of tried souls, ye true Americans, and we will drive the accursed South into the earth-girdling ocean! I did you a great, a very great wrong—and I am very sorry for it. And yet I always more than half believed you must be true. God be thanked—that dear Edward redeemed you—how would I now feel, if that infernal dealer had got you!—poor Edward, how he looked when he got my note and bid up the $4,000! “* * I told uncle I would write about Sarah —your dear mother. She died many months ago, and very suddenly, and full six weeks before we left the north or arrived at Evergreen. And while you now mourn that you can never see her again—yet 15 you will rejoice your oversight had nothing to do with her death. God, Frank, is kind to his people, that they may not have over much sorrow!
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