“LOW, BRUTAL, ENVIOUS MIND”
They did not try to keep a horse after this. Felix took his long mornin’ and evenin’ walks with a sore, indignant heart that dragged down his tired limbs still more.
And Hester wiped away the tears of little Ned, and tried to explain to his bewildered mind why his pretty favorite could not come up to him when he called it so long and patiently, holdin’ out the temptin’ lump of sugar that had always hastened its fleet step.
And she wiped away her own tears, and tried to find poor comfort in the thought that so many wuz worse off than herself.
She had Felix and Ned left, and her pretty home.
But in the little black settlement of Cedar Hill, not fur away, where her mother’s relations lived, destitution wuz reignin’.
For on one pretext or another their crops that they worked so hard for wuz taken from them. The most infamous laws wuz made whereby the white man could take the black man’s earnings.
The negro had the name of bein’ a freedman, but in reality he wuz a worse slave than ever, for in the old times he had but one master who did in most cases take tolerable care of him, for selfishness’ sake, if no other, and protected him from the selfishness of other people.
But now every one who could take advantage of his ignorance of law did so, and on one pretext or another robbed him of his hard-earned savings.
And it wuz not considered lawful and right by these higher powers for a nigger to get much property. It wuz looked upon as an insult to the superior race about him who had nuthin’, and it wuz considered dangerous to the old-established law of Might over Right.