Our spectator began to feel himself getting white in the face, and swear words were rising in his throat, and he beat a hasty retreat.—John was under conviction.
A few mornings after our young teacher was wakened by the sound of heavy blows and cries of pain proceeding from another part of the hotel. That evening when Harry, the boy appointed his special waiter, came to his room, Mr. Stull cautiously inquired who had been punished in the morning.
“Dat was me Massa. De ol’ boss gib’d me a buckin.”
“What was the trouble, Harry, and what is a bucking?”
“Why Lor’ bress you, Massa, dis chile slep’ jus’ a minit too long, an’ de ol’ boss cum’d wid his ‘buck,’ a board wid a short han’l and full ob holes, an’ he bent Harry ober, like for to spank a chil’, an’ o Lor’ how he struck.” (Then lowering his voice,) “Say, Massa Stull, can you tell de Norf star?”
The boy had been all care, attention and manliness. The soul of the teacher was fully aroused.—Stull was converted.
Waiting the coming of these gentlemen, Jack had gone into the back yard, and when they arrived he was nowhere to be found. A prolonged search failed to reveal his whereabouts, and when at length night fell kind Mrs. Douglass placed an ample plate of provisions in the back kitchen and continued it for several weeks, hoping he might return, but no angel ever spirited a particle of it away.
IV.
Years ago, even before Wendell Phillips, Abbey Kelley and others of their school began to hurl their bitter anathemas at the institution of slavery, there lived upon a far-reaching Virginia plantation in the valley of the James a man who had taken a truly comprehensive and patriotic view of the institution that was blighting the reputation of his state, as well as impoverishing her soil. He had inherited his fine estate, encumbered by a large number of slaves, and his soul revolted at the idea of holding them in bondage. A man of fine physique, commanding mien and superior intellectual endowments, John Young could not brook the idea of eating bread that savored of the sweat of another’s brow, and the thought of living amid the withering, blighting scenes of slave labor and slave traffic was not at all congenial to his tastes. Casting about, he soon found a purchaser for his broad acres. Before disposing of his plantation, however, he made a trip into western Pennsylvania, and in Mercer county, on the rich bottoms of Indian Run, made purchase of an extensive tract of valuable land. Returning to the Old Dominion, he at once concluded the sale of his estate, and vowed his intention of going North.
His friends were amazed at the idea of his becoming a “Pennymight” farmer, and his people were thrown into consternation, as they expected soon to be exposed on the auction block. The sallies of one class he easily parried; the fear of the other he quickly allayed by calling them together and presenting them with freedom papers. There was a moment of silence, of blank astonishment, and then arose shouts, and cries, and hallelujahs to God, amid laughter and tears, for this wonderful deliverance.