“Like all the rest of us, on both sides,” her father appended.
“Mother says her father never sold a negro,” Rhoda went on, “and that his slaves were always contented and happy and that the same things were true on the other plantations where she visited.”
Dr. Ware’s face darkened. “He didn’t, while he lived. But he left his affairs in such a tangle when he died that most of his slaves were sold to satisfy his debts. Your mother was ill then—it was about the time you were born—and I did not tell her, and as we were living in the North nobody else did, anything about that part of it. To this day she doesn’t know”—he was clipping off his words in a tone of impersonal resentment—“that her old mammy, of whom she was so fond, was sold to a trader who was buying for a cotton plantation in the South. When I found out about it I tried to have her traced, so as to buy her myself, bring her North and free her. But I finally found that she was dead and that her fate, though different, had been no better than Uncle Tom’s.”
The girl drew back with an exclamation of horror, and her eyes filled. “Oh, father! That good, kind creature, who loved mother so much!”
“Don’t ever tell your mother,” he cautioned. “It would do no good and it would make her unhappy. You see, Rhoda, how impossible it is for one man, no matter how good his intentions may be, to keep back the evil that is inherent in slavery. He can’t make his own affairs better than the system very long.”
Rhoda was looking out through the open door, her brow puckered in a thoughtful frown, the pain in her heart evidenced by the droop and the quiver of her sensitive lips. Dr. Ware’s office was on the eastern side of the house and faced a gate, opening from the cross street, through which a young man was now striding hastily.
“There’s Horace Hardaker!” she exclaimed. “How excited he looks! Oh, do you suppose he’s had bad news from Julia?”
They sprang to their feet and rushed out upon the veranda. “Very likely,” her father answered. “The border ruffians are overrunning eastern Kansas. What is it, Horace? What has happened?” he went on, grasping the young man’s hand as he mounted the steps. They pressed close to him, expectant, their faces anxious.
“Julia—have you had bad news?” Rhoda threw in breathlessly.
Hardaker’s face was working with suppressed excitement and it was a moment before he could speak.