THE STORY OF REBECCA.
BY REV. J. E. ROY, D.D.
The following incident in the life of a freedwoman affected me very much. Let me tell you her history.
In the old times, Col. Holly, of Middle Tennessee, was known as a kind master; but failing in business, his slaves had to be sold; then, hoping to retrieve his fortune, removed to Arkansas, taking with him two little slave girls, one of whom was Rebecca, four and a half years old. Here she grew up in his family, and was married to a man who belonged to another master, and who hired his time, paying one-half his wages as a mechanic.
In Tennessee her mother was, of course, taken away to another family. Her father, who had not belonged to Col. Holly, had already been sold to the Red River country, where he soon after died.
Recently, at Little Rock, I was a guest for five days in the house of Rebecca. Her husband owned his home, together with two other places. Her only son and a son-in-law were teaching school, and she was mothering the two little girls of her deceased daughter. On the centre table were a large family Bible and a copy of Shakespeare, both rich in binding and illustration; and on the walls were some, not costly, but tasteful and suggestive pictures, one of which represented Abraham Lincoln, Charles Sumner and John Brown. Her deportment was that of a lady; her company enjoyable. She said she remembered well the time and the scene when she was taken from her mother. The screaming was yet ringing in her ears. She bore in mind the last words of her mother, as she put a little red flannel shawl round her neck: “God bless my child! God bless my child!” She had in memory also her own crying and bursting of heart. So, too, was fresh in her mind, her weeping of nights in the new home, until, upon the imperative chiding of master and mistress, she was obliged to repress that relief of hidden sorrow.
Her young mistress, who was of about the same age, upon growing up, was sent to the High School of the city, and she herself was kept at home, and not allowed even to learn to read the Bible, out of which she was to be judged at the last day. She did experience a keen sense of injustice and of murmuring; but all of that she was obliged to suppress.
But what had become of her mother? “After freedom,” twenty-one and a half years since the parting, she came over to look up the daughter. But how shall there be an unmistakable recognition? Col. Holly and his wife have both passed away. Fortunately, a woman, who came over with the family, still survived. She brought the mother to the home of Rebecca, and pointing to her said, “That is your daughter.” Then such hugging, kissing, and shouting of joy and weeping, as is the sensation of the neighborhood. I am sure that I never heard a daughter speak with more enthusiasm of love, concerning her mother, than did Mrs. Solomon. She thought she would have known her anyhow; and her mother half came to the same conclusion when with such accuracy she depicted the scene of the parting.
And now she must go to visit the old family. Though the master and mistress are gone, in their place is left the daughter, whom she had nursed upon her own breast, and who is now married to a Northern man. Old times and scenes and friends are talked over, but soon she gives vent to the pent-up sorrows of the mother’s heart. With all the intensity of a great nature, she told of the grief at her separation from Rebecca. It was as though she had dropped blood from her heart; she went weeping and mourning every where. “I wept as I was making the bread, and them that eat the most of my bread eat the most of my heart.” So David had said: “Thou feedest them with the bread of tears.” The old colored people told her she must pray and the Lord would remove all that. In her prayer it seemed as though there were deep waters and high mountains between her and her child, and that the Lord would have to send men and remove the mountains, and make a way over the waters so that she could come to her child; and now He had done it all, and brought her to tell her story to the remnant of the old household. The young mistress, while her husband walks the floor in deep and mute emotion, herself bursts into tears, and as her only relief, declares: “My father was such a man that he never would have done that thing if he had not got broke.” “Oh,” said the sable matron, now rising up from the crushing of her womanhood, “I never thought anything about what caused it.” As Rebecca came to freedom she tried to learn, but her work for bread and the clumsiness of her unused powers were so great, she desisted, and now her Bible is read to her by the children.
Will you who have heard this true story help the American Missionary Association with your pennies and prayers, in their work of educating these poor people?