Mrs. Gentry believed in secession, and raved like a Pythoness against the cowardly Yankees. Clara, seeing a United States flag trampled on and torn in the street, secured a rag of it, secretly washed it, and placed it as a holy symbol on her bosom. Mrs. Gentry expatiated to her pupils on the righteousness and venerableness of slavery. Clara cut out from a pictorial paper a poor little dingy picture of Fremont, and concealed it between two leaves of her Bible, underlining on one of them these words: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”
Esha, the colored cook, a slave, was Clara’s fast friend in all her youthful troubles. Esha had passed through all degrees of slavery,—from toiling in a cotton-field to serving as a lady’s maid. Having had a child, a little girl, taken from her and sold, she ever afterwards refused to be again a mother. The straight hair, coppery hue, and somewhat Caucasian cast of features of this slave showed that she belonged to a race different from that of the ordinary negro. She had been named Ayesha, after one of Mahomet’s wives. She generally wore a Madras handkerchief about her head, and showed a partiality for brilliant colors. Many were the stealthy interviews that she and Clara enjoyed together.
Said Esha, on one of these occasions: “Don’t b’leeb ’em, darlin’, whan dey say de slabe am berry happy, an’ all dat. No slabe dat hab any sense am happy. He know, he do, dat suffn’s tuk away from him dat God gabe him, and meant he sh’d hole on ter; and so he feel ollerz kind o’ mean afore God an’ man too; an’ I ’fy anybody, white or black, to be happy who feel dat ar way.”
“But it isn’t the slave’s fault, Esha, that he’s a slave.”
“It’s de slabe’s fault dat he stay a slabe, darlin’,” said the old woman, with a strange kindling of the eyes. “But den de massa hab de raisin’ ob him, an’ so take good car’ ter break down all dar am of de man in de poor slabe; an’ de poor slabe hab no larnin’, and dunno whar’ to git a libbin’ or how to sabe hisself from starvin’. An’ if he run away, de people Norf send him back.”
On studying Esha further, Clara discovered that she was half Mahometan, and could speak Arabic. Her mixed notions she had got partly from her father, Amri, who belonged to one of those African tribes who cultivate a pure deism, tempered only by faith in the mission of Mahomet as an inspired prophet. Amri had been captured by a hostile tribe and sold into slavery. He lived long enough to teach his little Esha some things which she remembered. She could repeat several Arabic poems, and Clara first became familiar with the Arabian Nights through this old household drudge. One of these poems had a mystical charm for Clara. Through the illiterate garb which the slave’s English gave it, Clara detected a significance that led her to write out a paraphrase in the following words:—
“The sick man lay on his bed of pain. ‘Allah!’ he moaned; and his heart grew tender, and his eyes moist, with prayer.
“The next morning the tempter said to him: ‘No answer comes from Allah. Call louder, still no Allah will hear thee or ease thy pain.’
“The sick man shuddered. His heart grew cold with doubt and inquietude; when suddenly before him stood Elias.
“‘Child!’ said Elias, ‘why art thou sad? Dost think thy prayers are unheard and unanswered; that thy devotion is all in vain?’