THE COLORED CHILDREN.
But our boy’s place wuz beautiful. It looked like a picture of fairy land, as we see it bathed in the red western light. And though we felt that we might on closter inspection see some faults in it, we couldn’t seem to see any then.
It wuz a big house, sort o’ light grey in color, with a piazza a runnin’ clear round it, and up on the next story another piazza jest as big, reared up and runnin’ all round—a verandy they called it.
And both stories of the piazza wuz almost covered with beautiful blossomin’ vines, great big sweet roses, and lots of other fragrant posies that I didn’t know the name of, but liked their looks first rate.
There wuz a little rivulet a runnin’ along at one side of the front yard, and its pleasant gurglin’ sound seemed dretful sort o’ friendly and pleasant to us.
The yard—the lawn they called it—wuz awful big. It wuz as big as from our house over to Deacon Gowdey’s, and acrost over to Submit Danker’ses, and I don’t know but bigger, and all sorts of gay tropical plants wuz sot out in bunches on the green grass, and there wuz lots of big beautiful trees a standin’ alone and in clusters, and a wide path led up from the gate to the front door, bordered with beautiful trees with shinin’ leaves, and there in the front door stood our daughter Maggie, white-faced, and gladder-lookin’ than I ever see her before.
How she did kiss me and her Pa too! She couldn’t seem to tell us enough, how glad she wuz to see us and to have us there.
And my boy, Thomas Jefferson, cried, he wuz so glad to see us.
He didn’t boohoo right out, but the tears come into his eyes fast—he wuz very weak yet; and I kissed them tears right offen his cheeks, and his Pa kissed him too. Thomas Jefferson wuz very weak, he wuz a sick boy. And I tell you, seein’ him lay there so white and thin put us both in mind, his Pa and me, what Jonesville and the world would be to us if our boy had slipped out of it.