“He could not make his stories seem true, and whenever he read the Gospel, there was something either to make us laugh, or to make the overseer or our master angry. At last, he preached one day about all men being brothers, and about all being equal when they were born, and that they should be equal again when they were dead. He was disgraced and sent away after that; and so he ought to be for preaching what was false; for our master says, the blacks never were and never will be equal with the whites; and we know that our master and the overseer are not at all like our brothers.”
“And yet,” said Alfred, speaking his own thoughts, rather than thinking of the prudence of what he was saying, “there were men once who sold a brother as a slave into Egypt.”
“But he was not like us,” said Cassius; “for God made him a great lord over his brothers that sold him, and he let them go home again. I am sure,” he continued, grinning as he spoke, “if God made us lords over the white men, we should not let them go.”
“I am sorry,” said Alfred, “that your teacher is gone, for it seems as if teaching like his was very much wanted. When you get to Liberia, however, you will learn these things faster and better.”
He then asked for water; and while Cassius took down a calabash and disappeared to fetch some, Alfred went on digging.
“Ah! ha!” said the slave when he returned, “if I had a white gentleman to dig for me whenever I am away, I should soon go to Liberia: but I did not know that white gentlemen could dig.”
“I cannot help you much in that way, Cassius; but here is what will do as well;” and he put some money into his hand. Cassius leaped high into the air, and was apparently going to sing; but checked himself in a moment when he saw the face of an old negro, a neighbour of his, peeping through the fence.
“I must be going,” said Alfred; “but I shall never find my way to the pavilion. Will this old man go with me?”
“Yes, sir; and Robert is merry and will talk all the way.” So a ludicrous introduction took place between the gentleman and the roguish-looking old slave.
They had not far to go; but Robert found time to tell all his affairs to Alfred by the way. He told him that he had a cottage and provision-ground close by Cassius’s, and that he had a wife as old as himself, and that they were too tired to dig and plant when they had done work, so that their ground produced but little; but that their neighbour took care that they had enough, and either gave them food or worked in their ground on a Sunday, and that he piled their fire for them every night. In answer to Alfred’s remark, that Cassius was generous and kind in doing all this, old Robert said in a careless way, that Cassius was young and he and his wife old. This reminded Alfred of the fact, that respect for the aged is one of the characteristics of negroes.