University of Virginia Library

3. CHAPTER III.
LIFE IN A CITY.

Years passed away. Another scheme for the
improvement of the colored race, that seemed at
first more uncertain in its results, and more difficult
in its execution than Mr. Peyton's plan of the
farm, had been commenced in weakness, and fear,
and doubt; but, by the mighty help of Him who
can make the meanest of His creatures do an angel's
work, this little seed, when first put into the ground,
the smallest of all seeds, was developing—slowly,
indeed, but with a growth more vigorous and healthy
on that very account—into a mighty tree, whose
overshadowing branches should shed their blessed
influences over a whole continent.

Steadily onward came the slowly-advancing legions

along a path whose guide-posts and way-marks
were the head-stones of those willing spirits
who, with brave resignation, had placed themselves
in the van, that they might meet the brunt of the
battle, and bear the hottest of the day, and had
laid down their lives with a martyr's willingness
and a martyr's triumphant hope.

Mr. Peyton had been from the first deeply interested
in the great plan of colonization, so far-reaching
and comprehensive in its design, and he had
tried to excite the same feeling in those of his servants
whom he thought best fitted for liberty; but,
as far as Ben and Clara were concerned, his labors
were ineffectual.

A true type of many of their race, they would
gladly have been free, if they had been allowed to
exchange their easy, comfortable mode of life in
the household of a Virginia planter for the greater
variety and more easily obtained pleasures that
would be afforded them in a city. A love of finery
was also, in common with many other half-civilized
people, one of their strongest passions, and the better
opportunity they would have of obtaining and
displaying it had no slight influence upon them.
But a desire for freedom, for its own sake, was too
abstract and intangible a motive to affect them.

Mr. Peyton was unwilling to expose their facile
dispositions and unstable principles to the temptations

a city life would offer them; and so time
passed on, and they still remained members of his
family.

At length an epidemic, often fatal, and generally
supposed to be contagious, came, making its
insidious progress through the land, and at one time
every member of Mr. Peyton's immediate family
lay struck down by the simoon of its breath. His
mother and two of his children died, and only by
the most assiduous nursing were the lives of the
rest saved. Keziah, for whose assistance then many
a wish was breathed, was far away, and the charge
of the sick devolved on Clara and aunt Abby.

Clara's slow, gentle movements, her soft, light
touch, and sympathizing manner, made her a great
favorite at the sick-bed, and for many days she was
in constant request. And yet her affectionate nature
never grew weary, and she compiled with the fretful
wish of the convalescent with the same uncomplaining
patience that she had displayed while they
lay in the shadow of death.

“Is it still your wish to go to Philadelphia to
live?” asked Mr. Peyton, when the family were
able to leave their chambers, and dispense with
their gentle nurse.

“Yes, mas'r; Ben and me would like to go very
much, if you would let us,” was the reply.

“Yes,” said he, “you may go, if it is your wish;

I think you have well earned your freedom;” and
he thought with a pang of his two fair boys, who
had sighed out their last breath on Clara's bosom,
and his cherished mother, who had had no other
arm but hers to raise her dying head, and no other
hand to wipe the death-dews from her brow.

“I shall go, as usual, to the North this summer,”
he continued, “and I will see if I can find a suitable
situation for you among my acquaintances
there.”

“Can Americus go with us?” asked Clara.

“What! your brother? No, I think not,” replied
Mr. Peyton.

But Clara urged the matter with so much earnestness,
that Mr. Peyton, his heart softened by his
bereavements, felt unable to resist her plea for her
only brother, a boy some years younger than herself,
whom she loved with unusual warmth. He
granted the request, on the condition that they
should all remain with him one year longer. This
he did, partly to see if their affection would bear
the trial of self-denial and delay, and still more that
he might train them more effectually for a state of
independence. His first effort had shown him how
much labor and patience were required for this
purpose, and he now proceeded with more caution.

Ben and Clara readily acceded to this condition.
Clara would have remained three times as long

uncomplainingly for her brother, and Ben was very
much in the habit of yielding to his wife's inclinations.

The course of the next year saw them fairly
established in Philadelphia; Ben as a coachman
in a gentleman's family in Walnut Street, with
twenty dollars a month, Americus as waiter in another
with fifteen, and Clara and her little girl in
a house in South Street, where she was installed
mistress of two rooms and a pump, with a coal
cooking-stove in the kitchen, which nearly burned
her fingers off, and drove her to the verge of distraction,
before she learned how to manage it.

The next summer, when Mr. Peyton was passing
through Philadelphia on his way farther North, he
stopped for a day or two, that he might inquire
after his freedmen. After dinner, on the first day
of his arrival, Mrs. Peyton proposed a walk up
Chestnut Street, to call upon some old friends.

It was early in the summer, before the streets
get the deserted look, and the persons sauntering
through them the faded, languid appearance they
wear later in the season. Every thing was bright
and gay; the streets were thronged with ladies in
their fresh and delicate summer attire; airy robes
were floating, dainty little boots glancing in and
out, and bonnets, cloud-like in their translucent
lightness, were decked with exquisite bouquets,

mocking the eye by their close resemblance to
nature's cunning work, till the passers-by might
imagine themselves in some gay garden.

“What an elegantly-dressed lady that is before
us!” said Virginia; “just notice in what perfect
keeping every part of her dress is; that light, stone-colored
silk, and white crape shawl, and tasteful
white bonnet. I think I shall take her for my
model. You know sister Julia wished me to bring
her a fashionable shawl and bonnet, and I do not
see any thing that pleases me so well. But how
fantastically she has dressed that little child of
hers!”

“It is the fashion, I presume,” replied Mr. Peyton;
“I have observed that they all llook very much
alike.”

A stylish carriage came rolling down the street.

“Look, Charles!” exclaimed Virginia, “there is
Ben on the box.”

The lady in front of them bowed. Ben smiled
in return with an expression of familiar pleasure,
and then, catching sight of his old master, his look
changed to a whimsical mixture of delight and discomfiture.
Pleasure at seeing those he liked so
well, and that they should see his wife too, arrayed
in her best, and doubt as to their approval of
her manner of disposing of their funds, were about
equally balanced. He had only time, however, to

take off his hat with a peculiar flourish, meant to
express a great deal, and to give Clara a significant
look as he drove by. She turned to see what he
meant, and her eyes encountered Mr. Peyton's.

“Oh, Mast'r Charles, I am so glad to see you!”
she exclaimed.

“Clara! is it possible!” said Mr. and Mrs. Peyton
in a breath. “Why, Clara, how fine you look!”
continued Mrs. Peyton; “I have been admiring
your dress for the last two squares. And this is
your little Madge, is it? I should never have
recognized her.”

There was, indeed, a great metamorphosis. She
had been a round, chubby, laughing little thing,
dressed in a simple checked frock, and, except in
the coldest weather, running about barefooted; and
now she was thin and sickly-looking, with a closely-fitting
frock that came hardly to her knees, and
stockings drawn tight over her slender limbs, yet
leaving them partly exposed; while gray boots, and
a gipsy hat, with long blue streamers, completed
her attire.

A consciousness that the surprise shown by her
old master and mistress was not one of entire pleasure,
prevented Clara from feeling perfectly at her
ease. Yet she could not find it in her heart to be
wholly sorry for the untimely meeting. She had
often thought, when surveying herself in the glass

on Sunday afternoon, previous to going to church,
and taking her usual walk down Spruce Street—

“If mast'r or mistr'ss could see me now, wouldn't
they be astonished?”

And astonished they were, even more so than
Clara had anticipated.

“I thought Clara had more sense than to dress
herself in that unsuitable way. I am sure Ben's
wages can not support her long in that style. I
must talk to her about it,” said Virginia, as, after
a warm greeting, they passed on.

“I wonder how this will end,” said Mr. Peyton,
musingly. “Judging by appearances, I am afraid
I shall find I have made another great mistake. I
will speak to Ben, and give him a little advice about
his affairs.”

Mrs. Peyton found Clara the next day, neatly
and suitably attired, and busy with her sewing.
She was alone, for Madge was at school, she said.

“What is she studying?” asked Mrs. Peyton.

Among a long list of studies, Clara mentioned
music.

“Why are you having her taught music?” asked
Mrs. Peyton; “will it ever be of any use to her?”

“Yes, mistr'ss, I think it will. A friend of mine,
Miss Amanda Fitzwalter (and Clara, in her simplicity,
showed evident symptoms of gratified pride
in numbering Miss Fitzwalter among her friends)

plays very well on the guitar, and sings most beautiful;
and several white ladies take lessons of her.
I thought if my Maggie could learn, she might give
music lessons too—it would be more genteel than
to take in sewing.”

On giving her a little advice, and a gentle reproof
as to her style of dress, Clara answered meekly that
she had earned it all herself, excepting the shawl,
which Americus had given her. The families her
husband and brother were engaged in kept her
supplied with needle-work.

“But have you laid by any thing, in case you
or Ben should be taken sick?” asked Mrs. Peyton.

“Laws no, mistr'ss!” said Clara, with a wondering
shake of her head; “me and Ben's never
sick. White ladies think so much of gettin' sick!
I never see one that they don't talk to me about
it; but I don't know what it is.”

“You may know one of these days, Clara,” said
Mrs. Peyton, rather severely, for Clara's flippancy
had struck her disagreeably; but remembering her
patient nursing, she went on to talk to her more
plainly, and urge upon her the duties of economy
and of desires suited to her position.

Clara listened without replying, but it was easy
to see that her thoughts were wandering.

She was examining with a practiced eye Mrs.
Peyton's simple yet elegant dress. At last, when

Virginia had set in every conceivable light the consequences
of her folly and extravagance, in short,
had given quite a good little extempore sermon, that
she had been composing all the morning, Clara replied,
“Yes, mistr'ss; I will try, mistr'ss; I really
will. Ben and me will get along first-rate. But,
mistr'ss, I would like to show you a new collar I've
made myself, almost exactly like the one you have
on”—and Clara went to the next room to find it.

While she was gone Virginia glanced round the
room. It looked very neat and comfortable. The
floor was covered with a nice carpet; there was a
handsome sofa, and a bureau with a swing mirror,
a marble-topped table, a few chairs, some gay colored
engravings, framed and hanging about the room,
with the portrait of a solemn-looking colored clergyman,
in a white cravat and spectacles, with one
hand resting on the Bible, and the other grasping a
manuscript sermon; a few china ornaments over
the mantle-piece completed the furniture and adornments
of the parlor. A hasty examination of the
kitchen, the door to which Clara had left open,
showed the same orderly arrangement. The floor,
the windows, the dresser, and the tables, in short,
every thing that ought to be clean and bright, were
spotlessly white. Mrs. Peyton remembered that the
well-scoured appearance of the steps and pavement
had struck her as she had entered the house.

“Clara was always neat,” thought she; “but
now she seems to have caught the Philadelphia mania
for water;” and glad to find something to praise,
she commended her, on her return, for the exquisite
order of every thing around her.

Clara was very much pleased with the change in
the tone of the conversation, and showed to her sometime
mistress with no little pride all her comfortable
household arrangements, told her how much Ben
was liked in Mr. Westcott's family, and how well
Americus was getting along. She expatiated on the
comfort it was to her that they could all go to
church together almost every Sunday, and hear so
fine a preacher as Mr. Wiley, the man over the mantle-piece.

Mrs. Peyton listened with amused interest to
Clara's artless confidences; it was impossible to
keep up even the show, much less the reality of
displeasure, against one so thoroughly good-humored.

“Then you like every thing here very much?”
asked Virginia, as Clara stopped for a few moments
in her outpourings.

“Yes, mistr'ss, 'deed I do; it is even better than
I thought it would be; and I have so many friends”—

She was interrupted by the opening of the door,
and a little black woman, round, plump, and consequential,
with her chin thrown up in the air by the

exertion of maintaining a proper dignity of deportment,
entered with a roll of music in her hand.

“This is Miss Amanda Fitzwalter,” said Clara,
in some embarrassment, while Miss Amanda calmly
seated herself.

“Ah! the friend you were speaking about,” said
Mrs. Peyton.

“Yes, mistr'ss,” replied Clara.

“Oh!” said Amanda, with a shake of the head
and an upward look,

This outburst took Mrs. Peyton by surprise, but
she soon saw that it was only intended for effect;
Miss Amanda having picked up those four lines
somewhere, evidently thought this a good opportunity
to display them. They were clearly not intended
as an insinuation against Clara, who listened
to her oracle in simple admiration, and with a blind
belief in her that made Mrs. Peyton a little indignant
as well as amused.

“I encountered Mr. Peyton a few moments ago,”
continued Miss Fitzwalter, addressing Clara, while
Virginia wondered how she knew her husband, “and
he reminded me that this evening is the last meeting
for the season of the Philomathean Society, and

at the termination they intend to have a dance.
I promised him I would give my countenance to
it.”

“It is Americus, mistr'ss,” said Clara; “he belongs
to a society that meets in the evening and
makes speeches. He speaks most elegant, they all
say.”

“What do they speak about?” asked Mrs. Peyton.

“'Most every thing, 'specially poetry and politics,”
replied Clara.

“Lately,” observed Amanda, with her calm and
measured propriety of utterance, “they have been
debatin' on Foreign and Domestic Poetry. To-night
the subjec' is, `Which is the finest poet of Human
Nature, Byron or Shelley?”'

Mrs. Peyton hardly knew whether to laugh or be
indignant at the absurdity of the whole affair, and
Miss Fitzwalter's pompous manner. She was almost
ready to believe that the colored race were, as
she had often heard, incapable of taking care of
themselves, when she saw those to whom so much
had been given—such careful, early training, so
much religious instruction, and at last liberty—thus
wasting their time and opportunities. When they
might be vindicating their right to freedom, and
also the capability of their race to appreciate and
enjoy that precious boon, they were wasting their
energies on every pursuit that could gratify their

vanity, and losing sight of those means that could
alone increase their true respectability.

Soon afterward, two or three more of Clara's
friends entering, all handsomely dressed, and looking
as though they had come to make a formal
morning call, Mrs. Peyton took her leave.

When Virginia told Mr. Peyton the particulars of
her visit, and the impression she had received from
it, he did not agree with her as to the entire folly
of the Philomathean Society.

“It is certainly better,” said he, “than many
other ways of passing their leisure evenings, and it
shows some desire for intellectual improvement, and
some power of application, for they must read and
study to be able to make any speech at all. Byron
and Shelley are not, to be sure, likely to be of any
great use to them, nor will their studies of poetry
bring about any practical result, I presume; still,
there is a decided advance where mental enjoyments
take the place of other pleasures. I met Americus
a little while ago, `encountered him,' as Miss Fitzwalter
would say, and he is really very much improved
in appearance; he has quite a stylish air,
and seemed delighted with his new mode of life.”

The next evening, Ben, Americus, Clara, and little
Maggie came to report themselves to their old
master. Mr. Peyton was very glad to see them so
happy, and apparently so prosperous. He gave

them a great deal of good advice about laying by a
little store against “the evil day;” and they listened
with deep attention, and made many promises,
which Ben tried hard to keep, but which Clara and
her brother forgot almost as soon as they ceased to
fall upon their ear.

Americus looked a little confused when Mrs. Peyton
asked him about the success of his speech. Ben
answered for him.

“It went off most beautiful, mistr'ss; it's 'most
a pity Americus ain't a preacher—he speaks so well.
He's got all the big words ready for just when he
wants 'em.”

“Which side did you take?” asked Mrs. Peyton.

“Why, ma'am,” said Americus, “Miss Mary,
Mr. Patterson's daughter, told me that Shelley was
an atheist, so, of course, I would not uphold him.
I took Byron's side.”

“Yes, mas'r,” said Ben, “he spoke 'most an hour
without stopping a minute. I never see how the
words did come out of his mouth. I went sound
asleep, for I was mighty tired—I'd been out till
morning almost for three or four nights, driving the
family home from parties—and when I woke up he
was going on just the same.”

And honest Ben seemed to take as much pride in
his brother-in-law's achievements as if they were
his own.

Mr. Peyton was gratified to find them so pleasantly
situated. They went regularly to church,
they told him; and little Madge went to Sunday
school, as well as day school. If they had shown
more forethought and prudence, more of Nathan's
or Keziah's spirit, he would have felt fewer misgivings
about them; but knowing the difficulties they
had to contend against, and pleased to find they
had fallen into no bad habits, he left them, hoping
that his advice would have some effect, though he
hardly ventured to expect it.

But their life was not all sunshine; and there
were times when they wished themselves back under
Mr. Peyton's protection, when occasionally the
mighty arm of the law was found unable to resist
the aggressions of the strong against the weak.
Belonging to a race almost universally considered
inferior, regarded as the pariahs of society, even
when in outward forms justice was done to them,
the spirit with which its enactments was carried
out was often so oppressive, that they derived but
little satisfaction from its decrees; and obliged to
live apart, to eat apart, to enjoy themselves apart,
and to come by themselves to that blessed sacrament
in which believers declare that they are “one
in Christ,” while every attempt to put themselves
on even a temporary level with those more favored
is so jealously guarded against and resisted, it is

wonderful that there is still so much good-will and
kindness of feeling between the races, and that in
the hearts of those on whom these customs must
press so heavily there is so little bitterness or hatred
excited.

Not long after Mr. Peyton left Philadelphia, there
was an anti-slavery fair held there, and great feeling
was aroused in consequence in relation to that
much-vexed subject. In addition to this, an old
feud between the lowest class of laborers and the
colored race had broken out afresh in the suburbs
of the city. All the watchfulness of the police was
insufficient to prevent the perpetration of acts of
fearful violence, in which the blacks were almost
invariably the sufferers rather than the aggressors.

Americus had often seen a living proof of the
savage ferocity with which these quarrels were
carried on, in the person of a colored man, whom
age and misfortune rendered venerable, standing
at the corner of a street, with his tall athletic figure
erect and motionless, his head bald and exposed
to the cold winds, his sightless eyes touching every
tender heart with painful pity. Though for years he
might be seen standing in the same spot, the charity
of the passers-by never failed to him, for it could
easily be seen that he was no common beggar.

He had been many years before a maker and
mender of shoes in a very humble way, and was so

honest and industrious, that a good deal of the
custom of the neighborhood in that line fell to his
share. But unfortunately, after he had fairly
established himself in his little business, many of
the houses and shops around were rented by the
whites, who, indignant at having colored people
for their rivals, and often their successful ones,
declared their determination to drive them from
the street, or inflict summary vengeance on them.
This poor man paid little attention to their threats.
He could not afford to remove—it would break up
his business, and ruin him entirely; and he had a
family dependent on him. Therefore he kept himself
as quiet as possible, and worked more industriously
than ever. He could not have pursued a
course better calculated to excite the malignant
passions of the unreasonable and excitable people
around him.

One night, after he and all his family had retired
to rest, a gang of ruffians forced their way into his
room, and while his wife and children were calling
in vain for mercy and help, they made him blind
for life.

Americus had often pitied and relieved him, and
now, when the same state of feeling was showing
itself, though not excited to an equal pitch of exasperation,
he trembled lest a similar fate, or one even
worse, might befall him or those dear to him. It

was therefore with a feeling of no little fear that
he prepared to attend a lady who had been spending
the evening with his employer's family to her
residence. If his natural diffidence had not restrained
him, he would have told Mr. Patterson
that he had heard that it was unsafe for a colored
servant to escort a lady home at that particular
time, for that, in the excited state of public feeling
then, they were liable to be stopped and insulted;
but he was very much afraid of being called a
coward; and besides, as Mr. Patterson was unable,
from the state of his health, to attend the lady
himself, he saw no other way left, if she chose to
walk.

His heart misgave him as she turned into Tenth
Street, and continued walking for some distance in
a southerly direction, and still more as the fire-bell
had been pealing forth its summons for some time,
its strokes indicating that the engines were needed
in that part of the city. It had ceased ringing a
few minutes before the lady had set forth on her
homeward way, and they were passed by one engine
after another clattering over the pavement on their
return, with the usual noisy and shouting accompaniment
of men and boys.

They passed quickly along, and Americus was in
hopes that the rest of their way might be pursued
without interruption, when suddenly strange and

frightful sounds from one of the neighboring streets
—oaths, imprecations, blows, hurried trampling on
the sidewalk, with the sudden fall of some heavy
body—startled the timid pedestrains.

The lady turned hastily to Americus, who was
at a little distance behind her, and bade him come
nearer.

“Some of the fire companies must be engaged in
a fight,” said she; “we had better turn into the
next street.”

But before they had time to do this, the combatants
came rushing around the corner, shouting,
fighting, and struggling in the most inextricable
confusion. Some of the foremost of the crowd caught
sight of the lady and Americus, and with a savage
yell they sprang toward them.

The lady ran up the steps of the nearest house,
the door of which was opened, as soon as she reached
it, by the inmates, who had seen the disturbance,
and were eager to afford her a refuge. They did
not observe Americus, or were afraid to keep the
door open longer, for it was closed as he approached
it, and he was obliged to face the excited mob, whose
passions having dethroned their conscience and over-powered
their reason, now possessed the whole mass,
and led them on to deeds that seemed rather the
instinctive acts of ferocious and destructive animals
than those of rational beings.

No one stopped to ask the cause of the onset on
the unoffending man, still less to question its justice,
and before he had time to collect his thoughts,
Americus found himself the centre of the tumultuous
crowd, and the recipient of blows and thrusts
that fell upon him like a shower of hailstones. He
was pushed down and trampled upon several times,
and as often rose, terror and desperation rendering
him hardly conscious of the injuries he received, and
pressed his way through the throng.

Unfortunately, he happened to be particularly
well-dressed that night, and there was not an article
of his apparel, from his carefully tied cravat
down to his brightly polished boots, that did not cost
him several severe bruises from the jealous mob.
At length, with his clothes torn and hanging in ribbons
around him, without his hat, and with but one
boot, he found himself in a part of the crowd too
busy settling their private quarrels, as to the superiority
of their respective engines, to concern themselves
about him.

Slipping unobservedly through them, while cries
of “Stop the nigger! Stop him!” were shouted in
vain to combatants engaged in their own disputes,
he reached at last the corner of the street. To run
hastily round it, and take refuge in an oyster cellar
near by, kept by an acquaintance of his, was the
work of a moment.

He went in expecting to receive the attention his
bruises and other injuries required; but instead of
that he soon found himself busy in assisting and
comforting others; for lying stretched on a couch
hastily prepared in the cellar was its proprietor, in
a state of profound insensibility. The blood slowly
trickling from some wounds in his face and hands
alone showed that he was still alive.

“How did this happen?” asked Americus.

“You know Joshua Mason's people?” asked the
wife of the injured man.

“Very well,” was the reply.

“Well, you see, they was a goin' to give a dance,
and we had been invited, but we couldn't very
well go; and they wanted John to send the isters,
and John he got them all ready; he cooked them his
own self, the very last he'll ever cook, I'm afraid;
and then he said, as there wa'n't much business a
doin' to-night, he'd take them round himself, and
see how they came on, and our little Alfred went
with him; and he says, that just after they got into
Myamensing, a whole gang of Killers and Bouncers,
and all them rowdy fellers, ran out from some alley
and tried to get the isters away from John; but
John he held on, and called for the p'lice as loud as
he could; then they all rushed on him, and some
had knives in their hands, and Alfred couldn't see
'zactly how it was; but he saw a little feller creep

up behin' my husband with a slung-shot in his
hand, and give him such a blow with it on the back
of his head that he fell down as if he was struck
dead; and then they grabbed the isters and ran
away.”

The poor woman sobbed piteously as she finished
her simple story. Her apprehensions proved to be
well founded, for her husband never recovered from
the injuries he received that night. Yet the perpetrators
of that lawless act of violence, though living
in the midst of a law and order-loving community,
were never discovered nor brought to justice.

It is a true remark of some modern writer, that
no barbarians, not even the Goths and Vandals of
former times, are so reckless, and fierce, and destructive
in their habits as the savages of civilization.

Growing up under the shadow of Christian
churches, but unsummoned by their bells; living
amid people refined and educated, but who avoid all
intercourse with them, as if there were contamination
in their approach; thus debarred from their earliest
cry from all good influences, and shut up to
the teachings of riot and intemperance, and fraud
and poverty, that debases where it does not purify,
it is but the legitimate working out of the dark
problem that such means applied to such natures
should produce the results that are read of daily in
the purlieus of all large cities.

The Saxon has not the indolent and docile nature
of the African, but with strong passions and insatiate
desires, he has mighty energies to incite them
to activity, and a resolute will that hangs on to its
prey with unyielding pertinacity. These qualities,
so powerful when directed to any good purpose, are
equally so when urging their possessors forward in
the downward path, or rather, as one restraint after
another drops off, they seem to gain, as they descend,
in adroitness in planning and energy in executing
their reckless schemes.

If the lazy philanthropists, who give a small share
of their income to advance the cause of Christ, and
then settle down under the complacent impression
that they have done all that is required, and may
fairly claim the epithet of benevolent, were but once
to wake up and realize how much more good a little
activity of the spirit and a little personal influence
would do than all their money, they might
soon clear the crowded haunts of men from those
who, in the hot blood of their youth, waste their energies
and degrade their souls by deeds of violence
and shame. If the pious and high-minded would
but know and employ the almost divine power they
possess of uplifting, by their more elevated nature,
the lower spirits to a purer sphere, how much might
they accomplish!

The state of things which has been described

lasted but a short time. It was only the outburst
of a spasmodic phrensy, which seems to seize at intervals
upon that class of men who, with vacant
minds and undeveloped reason, have yet strong passions
with nothing to wreak them upon, and energies
that clamor for active exertion.

Americus reached his home safely, and was so
kindly nursed that he soon recovered from the injuries
he received. Thankful for his escape, he had no
desire to punish those who had so wantonly attacked
him. His only feeling toward them was a prudent
desire to avoid any other encounter with them
in any way. When Mr. Patterson told him that
some of the rioters were taken up, and that if he
went to the magistrate's office he might identify
those who had assaulted him, he showed such reluctance
to taking the step that Mr. Patterson did
not press it upon him.

The lady in whose service he had met this danger
called to inquire after him, and sent him a present,
which consoled him for his sufferings. Not long
afterward, Mr. Patterson deciding to go to Paris to
reside for some time, Americus gladly consented to
accompany the family there, as he told Clara he
had heard that “distinctions of color were unknown
in that land.”

For two or three years all went smoothly with
Ben and Clara, to whose family a little Charley had

been added. On Mr. and Mrs. Peyton's annual visits,
they always found them happy and comfortable;
and although no amount of advice made them
less improvident or extravagant, yet their hopefulness
and easy tranquillity as to the future at last
infected Mrs. Peyton, who declared herself tired of
acting the part of the skeleton at their continual
banquet, and on her last visit contented herself with
praising her husband's namesake, giving Maggie a
dress, and commending Clara's housekeeping and
Ben's steady conduct.

But the time of trial came at last, as it surely
does come in the life of every human being. If the
waters of prosperity make the plants grow rank,
and full of leaves and blossoms when fruit and seed
may be looked for, then is adversity commissioned,
with her unsparing fires, to extirpate every root and
branch that has left unfulfilled the gracious purpose
for which it was appointed.

A few weeks of unusually variable weather in
early winter, of warm, spring-like days, alternating
with chilling rains and gusts of snow and sleet,
during which Ben was more exposed than usual,
laid him up with the inflammatory rheumatism in
the midst of the season. Mr. Westcott, whose family
were among the gayest and most fashionable in
the city, was obliged to engage another coachman
to supply Ben's place, though he promised to employ

him again as soon as he was sufficiently recovered,
and continued his wages to him as usual
for the first three months of his illness; then, finding
that Ben still continued helpless, and that Clara's
time was so much occupied in nursing him and
attending to the children, that she had but little
opportunity for sewing, he advised him to go to the
hospital.

But this Ben was unwilling to do, neither would
Clara consent that he should leave her. Laying
aside all the follies and fripperies on which she had
wasted so much time, and thought, and money, she
sold her finery, stopped Maggie's music lessons,
with a sigh it must be confessed, and set her to
taking care of the baby, while in a sixpenny wrapper
she seated herself, like the devoted wife she
really was, by the bedside of her suffering husband,
and sewed day and night, till her dazzled eyes could
hardly discern the needle in her wearied fingers.

But there is nothing more dispiriting than to try
to make up for wasted time by crowding into one
hour the work of three. Each moment brings with
it its own duties and its peculiar privileges, and,
passing on with no human relentings, leaves behind
it a blessing or a curse, as these have been performed
and enjoyed, or neglected and unreceived.

Besides, it was a heavy task to fall upon one
woman, to support with her unassisted fingers a

sick man, two children, and herself. But with the
aid of some friends of her own color, and a little
assistance from the numerous benevolent societies
of that most benevolent of cities, Clara contrived to
keep the family in a decent room and in tolerable
comfort for a year or two.

But as Ben's disease refused to yield either to
time or medical remedies, and the strong man lay
helpless as a child day after day, and month after
month, their friends grew weary of helping them,
and fell away one by one, till even Amanda Fitzwalter,
who had proved, by her constant sympathy,
that her heart was at least equal to her vanity, said
“She didn't know what was to be done. Things
was gettin' worse every day, and with three chillun
of her own she didn't see her way clar to do
much more. It was hard times just now, but if
Clara could scrouge along a little while, perhaps
they'd mend.”

The liberality of the poor to each other would
surprise any one unacquainted with the fact. If it
had not been for the sympathy and kindness of those
hardly one degree better off than herself, Clara could
not have borne up so long as she did under the
troubles coming upon her.

At length Ben began slowly to recover, and when
reduced to their last crust, with not a cent in their
possession to buy food for their almost naked children,

he managed to brush the coat so long useless
to him, and which now hung round his once athletic
form in loose wrinkles, and went with the feeble
step of a convalescent to his old employer to claim
his promise of a re-engagement. But during his
long illness, Mr. Westcott had died, the family were
separated, and Ben turned away with a great disappointment
lying heavy on his heart.

Neither his principles nor his disposition fitted
him to meet this emergency, and for the first time
in his life he went home reeling with intoxication;
having spent in drink a little money some acquaintance
had lent him, with which he had intended to
buy food for his family.

Their downward course after this was one that
has been so often trodden and described, that the
particulars need no repetition. With a drunken
husband and two children, Clara found herself unable
to sustain the unequal conflict with life's burdens,
yet she never gave entirely up; her self-respect
grew daily weaker, and her principles less
able to resist the evil influences around her, yet
love for her husband and children preserved her
from many temptations that might otherwise have
proved too strong.

One bitter day in February, two young ladies
were walking with the quick, firm step of those to
whom life is an enjoyment as well as a battle,

through the crowded thoroughfares of Chestnut
Street. The keen wind brought the blood tingling
to their cheeks, and even with their muffs and boas,
and thickly wadded cloaks wrapped around them,
they felt its piercing cold. A little colored girl with
bare feet, and apparently nothing but an old blanket
shawl wrapped around her shivering frame, stopped
them with the entreaty, so pitiful at such seasons,
“Please ladies, give me some money to buy a little
bread. My mother is sick, and can't work any more.”

“Have you no father?” asked they.

“Yes, but he's sick too, and I have a little brother
at home; but the baby died yesterday, and we've
no money to bury it.”

After asking a few more questions, the young ladies
decided to follow the child home to see if she
told the truth, and if so, to render more effectual assistance
than street alms would prove. They were
not overly gifted with that virtue which some good
old divine prayed to be delivered from, the worldly
virtue of prudence, or they would hardly have accompanied
the girl through all the alleys, and turnings,
and out-of-the-way places into which she led
them. At length they came to a narrow alley
swarming with negroes. The houses seemed like
ant-hills, filled to the top, and the sidewalks were
crowded with their overflowings. Fat black faces
darkened every window. Stout, lazy-looking men

lounged in the doors, and, cold as it was, children
of all ages and complexions were tumbling, fighting,
and swearing upon the side-walks.

One of the young ladies was alarmed, and wished
to turn back; but the other, whose benevolence
would have led her unshrinkingly through a battle-field
when the contest was at its height, pressed on
without giving a glance around her. The child
went to the door of a cellar, that seemed rather like
a little opening in the pavement, and gliding down,
beckoned to the ladies to follow her. Even the more
courageous one of the two hesitated to do this, while
the other held her back imploringly. During this
moment of hesitation, a tall, gaunt mulatto woman,
with wild and glaring eyes, approached them.

“Go back, young ladies,” she exclaimed, with a
theatrical start and gesture; “what are such as you
doing here? This is no place for you. Has your
senses quite vanished from you, that you come to
such a bottomless pit? My daughter! I lost her
here; and I come to look for her morning and night.
But I never want no other mother to feel what I've
felt. Go back this minute, and if any one dares to
say a word to you—” and she flourished a broken
cane she held in her hand.

Her manner and words so alarmed the more timid
one that she could hardly stand, and the other young
lady was about to retrace her steps, quite unwillingly

though, when she caught sight of a gentleman
approaching.

“There is Mr. Lyndsay, the city missionary,”
said she; “how fortunate!” and beckoning to him,
he hurried to her assistance.

He was evidently known in the alley; for the
commotion and bustle that had been caused by the
entrance of the young ladies was quieted at his approach,
and the woman who had accosted them so
singularly welcomed him with an approving smile
and gesture, and, bidding him take good care of the
ladies, left them to him, and disappeared in a house
near by.

“That is a half-deranged woman,” observed Mr.
Lyndsay; “the loss of her only child has affected
her intellect; but, notwithstanding that, she has
great influence among these demi-brutes. If it had
not been for her, I should hardly have met with the
tolerance I have here. But how did you happen to
come to such a place?”

“We were following a little beggar-girl home, to
see if the sad story she told us was really true, and
were so intent upon keeping sight of her, that we
hardly noticed where she was leading us. She flitted
down those steps and disappeared in that dark
cellar at our feet, and we are almost afraid to pursue
our investigations further; yet she was so miserably
clad, and told such a piteous tale, that I do

not like to go home without finding out the truth
about her.”

“If you will trust the matter to me,” said Mr.
Lyndsay, “I will attend to it, and report to you
this afternoon, if you like.”

“Thank you,” replied the young lady; “that
will be the best way, I suppose. But they are
probably in immediate want of fire and food, and
on so cold a day as this there ought not to be an
hour's delay in providing for their necessities. I
will leave some money with you that you can spend
for them as you think best;” and the young lady
drew her purse from her muff.

“Put up your purse, Miss Sumner,” exclaimed
Mr. Lyndsay, hastily; “wait till we are out of this
alley.”

But his warning came too late. A slender, sharp-looking
colored boy, who wanted but a shade or two
of being white, had been hovering unnoticed near
them, listening to their conversation. No sooner
did his keen eyes catch sight of the purse, weighed
down by its burden, than with a sudden dart upon
it he clutched it and sprang into the nearest house.

Mr. Lyndsay looked distressed, and Miss Sumner
glanced at her empty hand with blank dismay.

“It is my whole quarter's allowance,” said she;
“papa gave it to me this morning.”

“I am afraid you will never recover it,” said

Mr. Lyndsay. “There is no one in the whole
street but Judith, the crazy woman, who would
not, I think, for a little share of the profits, assist
the boy in concealing himself. But let me take
you away from here as soon as possible,” added
he, seeing that a new commotion was exciting this
hive of drones. “I will return and see what can
be done about your loss, and your proteges also.”

The young ladies were very glad to accept his
offer, for Miss Sumner's companion was trembling
with terror, and Miss Sumner herself had lost some
of her courage with her purse.

They had but just turned the corner, and were
breathing more freely, when their attention was
attracted by a loud shout behind them. On looking
back, they saw Judith running toward them
with the purse in her hand. She had seen the
whole affair from a window, and as the boy happened
to take refuge in the same house with herself,
she flew upon him, and with a celerity and
adroitness equal to his own, snatched his prize
from his grasp and ran with it after its owner.
This had caused the bustle that alarmed Mr.
Lyndsay and the young ladies.

Miss Sumner's eye took a hasty survey of the
woman's dress. She saw that it was arranged
with a certain decency and neatness, which showed
that her old habits of order and regard for her personal

appearance had not quite deserted her; but
it looked old and thin, and on this bitter day she
braved the cold air without either bonnet or shawl.

The young lady drew a small gold piece from
her purse and offered it to her.

“What do you give me this for?” she burst
forth, with increased wildness of look and flightiness
of manner; “is it for my honesty? Do you
dare to pay me for my honesty? You rich folks
think you can buy us poor ones, soul and body;
but I'm above you all. I live up in the sky with
the Lord and his angels, where you daren't come—
where you daren't come, with all your precious gold
and silver;” and she glared close into Miss Sumner's
eyes with her own, in whose depths of gloom no
ray of brightness shone.

“It was for the trouble you had taken for me
that I offered you that,” said Miss Sumner, quietly
and soothingly, “not for your honesty.”

“Trouble!” repeated Judith, with a wild laugh;
“ha! ha! you call that trouble, do you? Oh!
child, child!” with a sudden change to the deepest
sadness of tone and look, “if you had a husband
and brother in the penitentiary for nine long years
for loving money too well, and a daughter in the
cold ground because she wanted to live like a lady,
and keep her hands soft, and wear silks and velvets
like you white ladies, then you would know what

trouble was. Take back this money, or I'll fling
it in the gutter where it belongs.”

Miss Sumner took it, and Judith disappeared
round the corner. Mr. Lyndsay accompanied them
a little way, and then returned to fulfill his promise
of ascertaining the condition of the occupants of the
cellar.

He descended the rickety steps, and stood for a
few minutes to let his eyes become accustomed to
the gloom of the place. He heard a faint voice
speaking at intervals from the further corner of the
room, and gradually there came out in the dim light
the figure of a woman stretched on the ground (for
the cellar had no floor); in another corner lay what
seemed a bundle of rags, breathing heavily; and a
little boy, with hardly an article of clothing upon
him, was crouching among the smouldering ashes
in the chimney corner. The girl who had led the
ladies to this desolate abode stood near the fire-place,
with her large eyes, which glittered unnaturally
in her thin face, fixed with a painfully eager
look on the compassionate visitor.

The least distressing object in the miserable room
was the dead body of a babe, whose life was as yet
counted only by months and days. The ineffable
repose of its softly-rounded features—the perfect serenity
and peace stamped on its innocent face—the
once restless hands, whose light, uncertain touch

had thrilled the mother's heart, now gently laid over
in each other with their dimples frozen into them—
all that wonderful structure, so perfect and incomprehensible
in its minutest details, laid aside by its
Maker, while yet the spirit that informed it was unconscious
of the glorious gift it had received—in a
word, all the halo of blessedness and heaven that
lies around the couch of the innocent dead, now
seemed to shed its sanctity and silence over that
most dreary place and its occupants.

The reader will already have surmised that they
who were reduced to this deep degradation were no
other than Ben and Clara; and that not poverty
alone, but crime, had been at work before they could
sink so far. Ben had become a confirmed drunkard,
not so much from love of drink as to drown
thought and remorse; and Clara, after trying in
vain to arouse in him a better spirit, had given up
in despair, and allowed matters to take their own
course, without attempting to do the little in her
power to enable them to retain their old position.

But by how many cords does our heavenly Father
draw back the wanderers to his fold! In this,
almost the lowest depth to which human nature
could sink, there came to Clara this babe, like a
dove from the ark of God's mercy; and though, even
as the dove found the earth inhospitable and unkind,
so the babe lay unwelcomed and uncherished

on its mother's breast, yet six months of helpless
loveliness and endearing trust could not but soften a
heart hardened by despair rather than vice; and
when, to complete its mission, the child's soul took
its flight for heaven, it went bearing for its olive
branch the repentant prayers and tears of its sorrow-stricken
mother.

But though prayers that had long been strange
to her lips came from her heart, mingled with earnest
resolutions of amendment and the bitterest pangs
of remorse, yet, situated as she was, sick, cold, and
hungry, with a husband who answered every appeal
with a drunken growl, and no human aid near, she
could not see how she could put her resolves into
practice.

It was without her knowledge, while she lay with
her head buried in her hands, sighing, moaning, and
ejaculating brief and earnest prayers for mercy and
deliverance, that Maggie had slipped out on what
had been for a long time her daily errand; and now,
as if in answer to her cries, there stood before her
the man whose business it was to seek out the poor
and needy

Mr. Lindsay, with the promptness of true charity,
soon had a fire blazing on the hearth, and an ample
dinner provided for them. The pleasant warmth
drew Ben from his corner, and he tried to utter a few
expressions of gratitude as he hung over the blaze.

The good missionary became interested in Clara's
account of their sufferings; who, though she tried
to shelter Ben's fault under the plea of illness, related
every thing else so artlessly and simply that
Mr. Lindsay was convinced of its truth. From the
Dorcas Society of a neighboring church he obtained
garments for herself and the children, wood from
another benevolent society, and with the money
Miss Sumner had intrusted to him he hired a better
room, to which he had them removed immediately.

Miss Sumner visited them there, and with her
assistance Mr. Lindsay discovered some old patrons
of Clara, who were very glad to find again the neat
seamstress after whom they had made many ineffectual
inquiries.

“If you are willing to work hard, Clara,” said
Mr. Lindsay, “I will promise you enough to do.”

“Yes, sir,” replied Clara; “I am too glad to get
work not to do the best I can—'deed I will; but
Ben hain't got no ambition left. I'm afraid for him.
May be, sir, if you would talk to him pleasant, he
might feel better.”

Mr. Lindsay sought an opportunity to speak to
him alone, and tried by encouraging words to awaken
some of his old spirit in him.

Ben was employed in splitting up a load of wood,
a job that had accidentally fallen to him, and, stopping
in his work, he said, shaking his head,

“'Taint of the least use to talk to me that way,
Mr. Lindsay. I've tried my best, and I ain't any
thing but a nigger, and never shall be. I'm just as
good and respectable now as when I had twenty
dollars a month, and my wife dressed like a lady;
and what's the use of doing any thing more. You
talk to me about educating my children; but what's
the use of it. You see that black man that went
by us just now, and held up his head so high when
he saw me standing here. Well, I know'd him
very well wonst, when I first came to the city. He
was a head waiter then at parties, and is now, I
believe; and he has been laying up money all his
life. He's worth now twenty thousand dollars at
least, and what good will it do him or his children?
The more they know, the wuss it will be for 'em;
for they won't keep company with their own color,
and white folks won't associate with them, and thar
they are shut up by themselves; and what good do
their Brussels carpets and pianny do them, I'd like
to know? They may try till they split, and they
won't be any thing but just what I am, a nigger
that every body despises.”

“No person who does their duty,” replied Mr.
Lyndsay, “is ever despised, no matter what his
color may be.”

“Perhaps, Mr. Lyndsay, if the world was all made
up of good people like you, that might be so. But

people for the most part don't stop to ask if I do
my duty. They see that I ain't a white man, and
push me out of the way. Don't you believe, Mr.
Lyndsay, that Clary is a great deal more respectable
and well-behaved than some of these poor, miserable
white women about here.”

“Certainly I do,” said Mr. Lyndsay; “Clara is
a good wife, and is trying hard now to bring up
her children well.”

“Clary is a good woman, Mr. Lyndsay; it was
all my fault that we were in that hole where you
found us. She strived and struggled as hard as
any poor woman could, but she couldn't keep me
from drinking, and at last she had to give up. But
she's never given me a hard word all the time we've
been together, and if I leave off drink, as I am going
to do, it will be for no other reason but that I
don't want to see her and the children suffer. Well,
now, good as she is, and nice and handsome as she
can make herself look, if I was to take her in the
cars, and they was full, the meanest and dirtiest
white woman, or man either, would have a seat,
and she would have to stand all the way; and if it
was the steam-boat, she'd have to sleep on deck, and,
like as not, not get any thing to eat—always be
shoved a one side, as if she wa'n't made by the same
God. Oh, Mr. Lyndsay, it's mighty hard for a man
like me, that could be as good as any body, if his

skin were a shade or two lighter, to be kept down
so all the time, and not get drunk or wicked.”

Ben had a great deal more to say, for he had
thought more, in his temporary intervals of sobriety
during the last two years, than ever before in his
life; and this was the first time that his thoughts
had found utterance. But, as he was becoming a
little excited, Mr. Lyndsay, fearing he might be
soon addressing an audience instead of an individual,
left him, promising to call and see him soon.

To all religious exhortations Ben turned a deaf
ear, and after a time grew restive under them, and
sometimes almost rude. To Clara's remonstrances
he replied,

“Preaching is very well, I ain't nothin' against
it. I wouldn't mind doing a little of it myself.
But to keep at a feller from mornin' till night, with
`Do this—it's your duty,' and `bear that—it's your
duty too;' and if you are knocked down, get up and
rub the mud off, and say `Thank you, for that's your
duty;' and if you work hard all day, and get nothing
but a cuss when you ask for your pay at night,
why go home and make a special prayer for the man
before you go to sleep, for that's another duty—this
is coming it rather too strong. Mr. Lyndsay is a
good man himself; but if he'd only keep his preaching
for the white people, and let them practice it on
us, it would do a great deal more good, I think.”

But though Ben grumbled in this way, still the
oversight Mr. Lyndsay kept upon him was of great
service in keeping him firm in his resolution to be
temperate and industrious. A situation was procured
for him with some difficulty, where, although
the wages were low and the work heavy, and not
connected with horses in the most remote degree,
yet he performed his duties faithfully, and brought
home the money to his wife every Saturday night.

It grieved Clara very much that she could not
induce him to renew his old practice of accompanying
her to church on Sunday, but he had heard
enough pious talk, he said, to last him the rest of
his life; and so he passed the day principally in
trying to keep asleep.

During all this time, Americus remained in Paris,
and Mr. Peyton had been prevented, by affairs
connected with his family, from visiting the North,
so that their apparent neglect, which weighed heavily
on the minds of Ben and Clara, was afterward
satisfactorally accounted for. As often happens,
when trials are sent upon the weak and dependent,
human aid is put far away, that they may learn
more readily the hard lesson of faith and trust in
the unseen arm of the All-Father.