And remembered how proudly they had labored to finish and furnish the little home. How Hester had worked at washin’ and ironin’ and bought the paper and paint, and pretty curtains and carpet, and how infinitely happy they had been in it.
How after his hard day’s work he would work in the little sunshiny garden and orchard settin’ out fruit trees, plantin’ berry bushes and grape-vines, and how they had together gloried over all their small successes, and thought that they had the very coziest and happiest home in the world.
Wall, they had lost it all. The honor of bein’ an American citizen bore down pretty heavy on him, and he had to give it up.
Wall, twice did Felix try to get a home for himself and his wife in the Southern States.
But both times, on one pretext or another, did the dominant power deprive him of his earnings, and take his home from him.
Felix had a good heart; and once, the last time he tried to make a home under Southern skies, this good heart wuz the cause of his overthrow.
He barely escaped with his life for darin’ to harbor a white teacher who had left his home and gone down South, followin’ the Bible precepts “to seek and save them that was lost, and preach the Gospel to every creature.”
He taught a small colored school week days and preached in an old empty barn on Sundays.
Little Ned went to his school and wuz greatly attached to him.