The freed boy in Alabama

“Say, Boy! Do you want to hire out?”
BY ANNE M. MITCHELL, AUTHOR OF “MARTHA’S GIFT.”
“If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.”
PHILADELPHIA: PRESBYTERIAN BOARD OF PUBLICATION, 1334 Chestnut Street.
Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1869, by WM. L. HILDEBURN, Treasurer, in trust for the PRESBYTERIAN PUBLICATION COMMITTEE, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania. Westcott & Thomson, Stereotypers, Philada.
THE FREED BOY IN ALABAMA.
“New are the leaves on the oaken spray,
New the blades of the silky grass;
Flowers that were buds but yesterday
Peep from the ground where’er I pass.”
Bryant.
IT was an April day in the South—not windy and blustering, with the remembrances of March still clinging about it, but warm and lovely, mild and balmy, with spring beauty and promise of good over everything. The grass was springing everywhere, and the buds on the trees were bursting into blossom, and one could gather tender leaves and delicate sprays of white and hold them with the tender, caressing touch which we give to all that heralds spring. It was a good day to breathe the soft, mild air, to be among the growing things and dismiss winter from the mind; and, above all, it was one of those days when the restless feeling we all have sometimes returns in full force, and the thought of coming life and energy in the natural world fills the mind with a longing to do something more than sit still and enjoy.