"The bitterness of all this I too have tasted, and my only wonder is, that I can live on. My heart will not break."
"Mine has long since broken; but this body will not die. My poor children! I would that they were dead with their poor slave-mother."
"Why did your master sell you?"
"Because he wanted to buy a piano for his daughter," and his lip curled.
To gratify the taste of his child, that white man had separated a father from his children, had recklessly sundered the holiest ties, and broken the most solemn and loving domestic attachments; and to such heathenism the public gave its hearty approval, because his complexion was a shade or so darker than Caucasians. Oh, Church of Christ! where is thy warning voice? Is not this a matter, upon the injustice of which thy great voice should pronounce a malison?
"My name is Charles, what is yours?"
"Ann."
"Well, Ann," he resumed, "I like your face; you are the only one I've seen in this pen that I was willing to talk with. You have just come. Tell me why were you sold?"
In a few concise words I told him my story. He seemed touched with sympathy.
"Poor girl!" he murmured, "like all the rest of our tribe, you have tasted of trouble."