"I want to go to Washington, to find my husband. He ran away awhile ago, and is at work in Washington."
"Do you think it right, auntie, to leave your mistress, who has taken care of you so long?"
She had been busy with her bundle, but stopped now and stood erect before me, her hands on her hips. Her black eyes flashed.
"Taken care of me! What did she ever do for me? Haven't I been her cook for more than thirty years? Haven't I cooked every meal she ever ate in that house? What has she done for me in return? She has sold my children down South, one after another. She has whipped me when I cried for them. She has treated me like a hog, sir! Yes, sir, like a hog!"
She resumed her work of preparation for leaving. That night she and her remaining children joined the thousands of colored people who had already taken sudden leave of their masters.
Returning to the mansion to see the wounded, I met Mrs. —-- in the hall. She was tall, robust, dignified. She evidently did not fully realize the great change which had taken place in her affairs. The change was not complete at that moment. The colored steward was there, hat in hand; obsequious, bowing politely, and obeying all commands. A half-hour before I had seen him in the cook's cabin, making arrangements for leaving the premises, and a half-hour later he was on his way toward freedom.
"I wish I had gone to Richmond," said the lady. "This is terrible, terrible! They have taken all my provisions, all my horses and cattle. My servants are going. What shall I do?" She sank upon the sofa, and for a moment gave way to her feelings.
"You are better off here than you would be there, with the city full of wounded, and scant supplies in the market," I remarked.
"You are right, sir. What could I do with my three little children there? Yet how I am to live here I don't know. When will this terrible war come to an end?"
But enough of this scene. I have introduced it because it is real, and because it is but one of many. There are hundreds of Southern homes where the change has been equally great. Secession is not what they who started it thought it would be. The penalties for crime always come, sooner or later. God's scales are correctly balanced. He makes all things even. For every tear wrung from the slave by injustice, for every broken heart, for the weeping and wailing of mothers for their babes sold to the far-off South, for every wrong there is retribution