In my mind’s eye I see Foster’s little black boy who is sold into slavery and driven far away from the banks of the Suanee river to the cotton fields of the Southwest. Perhaps not one soul in all the world, besides his mother and little brothers, ever gave the poor slave boy a single thought after he was driven out of sight of the old cabin home. Other boys going away from home—white boys of those days, had all the world before them; but the poor slave boy had only his chains and his broken heart.
I see him lying in his hard bed of straw at night, with the storms howling around the cabin and the fading fire sending out only a few feeble rays of light—I see the homesick lad lying with his face buried in his hands and threading the old paths that lead up to his mother’s cabin through his mind. He sees the dear old river and the wild fowls resting on the bosom of the water. He sees his dear old mother sleeping in the old familiar bed where he lay when a baby. He sees his younger brother sleeping on the bed of straw near the hearth, his black face turned up for the moon beams to write lines of tenderness and love on each well remembered cheek. Outside the humble door the shaggy watchdog watches over the family that owns nothing but their wrongs.
And, with my mind on that homesick boy, I hear him sobbing, while the coarse sleeve of his soiled shirt absorbs the bitter tears that are known only to the great God who has commanded every one to love his neighbor as himself. In his ears the hum of the bees is still heard, and the music of his father’s banjo comes back on the wings of memory, like the odor of funeral-smelling flowers coming back from the grave of his buried hopes. The darkie boy at his saddest best.
The homesick boy of Foster’s song is not the bad nigger, full of nigger gin and hatred and evil intentions. The slave boy in whom you see only centuries of wrongs and oppressions is the picture in Foster’s immortal song.
Oh, the world would be better if every one had experienced a season of homesick longings, and cried themselves to sleep with the image of absent loved ones painted on their mind with the brush of tenderness. Better if all had wrongs to remember, and oppressions to leave scars on their souls that would make them feel kinship towards all the unfortunate who must suffer and bear their burdens alone.
It is a well known sociological fact that those who suffer hardships and privations have more tender feelings for the poor and unfortunate, than those who were born with a silver spoon in their mouth, and never intermingled with the people of the lower world. Of course, there are exceptions, but they are few. When you find a wealthy person who feels charitable and kind towards all the world, that person has suffered heart-aches, too. He wants the sympathy of those who have suffered like he has. There is a fraternal feeling in his heart for the unfortunate, planted there by his own heart-aches and watered with his own tears. A man who has never known a heart-ache, never gives a single thought to the homesick boy who longed for his Suanee river home.
FRIENDS WHO PASS IN THE DARK
Of late I have found a very good and sincere friend who has, since then been an actual inspiration to me. For many years we knew of each other’s existence, but we did not move in the same orbit, one might say, so we never met to touch and smile as we passed each other in the busy pursuits of life. We seemed to pass each other in the dark, and so far apart that our binnacle lights could only be dimly seen away off in the gloom of the night.
And all the time we were dreaming the same dreams, cultivating the same love, nourishing the same hope, fanning the same laudable ambition, admiring the same poems, worshipping the same God of Nature. And we continued to pass in the dark. I had my struggles and deferred hopes and pinching poverty and unsatisfied desires, mellowed and made smooth, however, with the love of friends and companions who lived with me in the broad daylight of recognition and mental appreciation; and he had his friends and hopes and dreams and slights and heart-affecting episodes and burning ambition and love of humanity—and thus we continued to pass and repass in the dark.