"Why, laws, mas'r, honey, you hurts my feelings! Why, now, I's in hopes you'd say you see de grace a shining out all over me. Why, I's been in a clar state of glorrufication all dis evening. Dat ar ole Pomp, dar's no mistake, he does lift a body up powerful!"
"You don't remember a word he said, now, I'll bet," said Tom. "Where was the text?"
"Text!" said Jim, with assurance; "'twas in de twenty-fourth chapter of Jerusalem, sixteenth verse."
"Well," said Tom, "what was it? I should like to know."
"Laws, mas'r, I b'lieve I can 'peat it," said Jim, with an indescribable air of waggish satisfaction. "'Twas dis yer: 'Ye shall sarch fur me in de mornin' and ye won't find me.' Dat ar's a mighty solemn text, mas'r, and ye ought to be 'flecting on't."
And Tom had occasion to reflect upon it, the next morning, when, having stormed, and sworn, and pulled until he broke the bell-wire, no Jim appeared. It was some time before he could actually realize or believe he was gone.
The ungrateful dog! The impudent puppy, who had had all his life everything he wanted, to run away from him!
Tom aroused the whole country in pursuit; and, as servants were found missing in many other plantations, there was a general excitement through the community. The Trumpet of Liberty began to blow dolorous notes, and articles headed, "The results of Abolitionist teaching, and covert incendiarism," began to appear. It was recommended that a general search should be made through the country for all persons tinctured with abolitionist sentiments, and immediate measures pursued to oblige them to leave the state forthwith.
One or two respectable gentlemen, who were in the habit of taking the National Era, were visited by members of a vigilance committee, and informed that they must immediately drop the paper or leave the state; and when one of them talked of his rights as a free citizen, and inquired how they would enforce their requisitions, supposing he determined to stand for his liberty, the party informed him succinctly to the following purport: "If you do not comply, your corn, grain, and fodder, will be burned; your cattle driven off; and, if you still persist, your house will be set on fire and consumed, and you will never know who does it."
When the good gentleman inquired if this was freedom, his instructors informed him that freedom consisted in their right and power to make their neighbors submit to their own will and dictation; and he would find himself in a free country so far as this, that every one would feel at liberty to annoy and maltreat him so long as he opposed the popular will.