This little girl's name was Rachel, but they used to call her Ratie. She was a hunchback and a dwarf, with an ugly black face, coarse and irregular features, but a low, pleasant voice, and nice manners. Nobody ever scolded Ratie, for she never deserved it. She always did her work—the little that was assigned her—with a cheerful heart and willing hand. This work was chiefly to gather up little bits of chips in baskets, or collect shavings from the carpenters' shops, and take them to the cabins or the great kitchen, where they were used for kindling fires. She had a sweet, gentle spirit, and a low, cheery laugh that charmed everybody. Even the white folks who lived up at the great house loved her, and somehow felt better when she was near.
Ratie used to go out into the fields on summer days, or in the early spring, and pick the first flowers. Later in the season she caught the butterflies or grasshoppers, but she never hurt them. She would look at the bright spangled wings of the butterflies, or the green coats of the pretty, chirping grasshoppers, with an eye full of admiration; and she always seemed sorry when she gave them up. The lambs used to run to her, and eat from her hands. If she went into the park, the deer came to her side lovingly, and the young fawns sported and played around her. No one harmed Ratie or expected harm from her.
Poor little hunchback! Many an idle traveller has paused in his slow wanderings to listen to her song, as she sat on the wayside stump, knitting stockings for the work-people, and singing old snatches of songs, and airs that bring back to the heart glimpses of the paradise of our lost childhood! No broad-throated robin ever poured out a wilder, fuller gush of melody than the songs of this untaught child!
Little Ratie's days were passed in the same even routine, without thought or chance of change. Up at the house they loved her; and her young mistresses used to supply her with cast-off ribbons and shawls and fancy trappings from their own wardrobes, which she prized very much,—delighting to deck out her odd little person with these old fineries.
Once, as she sat singing on an old stile, and knitting a stocking, a rough sort of gentleman, driving by in his neat little tilbury, stopped and listened to Ratie's song. When he looked at the strange child he felt a little shocked; but he called out in a loud voice, "Halloo, Dumpey Blackie! here is a fip for your song"; and he tossed her a small coin. "Take that, and give me another song."
The child was pleased with the gift, took it up from where it had rolled on the ground at her feet, and soon began another of her wild little ditties. As she sang on, she forgot the exact words, and put in some of her own, which harmonized just as well with the air. The stranger was so much pleased, that he gave her another fip, and called for another song, and still another. At length, he asked the child to whom she belonged. She told him that she belonged to her old master.
"And what is your old master's name?" asked the gentleman.
Ratie, who had never been two miles beyond the borders of the plantation, laughed, thinking it a fine joke that anybody should not know the name of her "old master"; for, to her, he was the most important personage in the world. So she only laughed and shook her head derisively in answer.
"Will you not tell me his name?" again asked the stranger.
But the child smiled still more incredulously; so the gentleman deemed it best to follow her home, which he accordingly did, and found that Colonel Williams, a rich old planter, was the owner of this little melodious blackbird.