"Oh, dear me! Miss Nancy! what do you think? They say that Mr. Barkoff, the green grocer, has let his wife whip a colored woman to death."
"Oh, it can't be true," cried Miss Nancy, as she started up from her chair. "It is, I trust, some slanderous piece of gossip."
"Oh, the Lord love your saintly heart, but I do believe 'tis true, for, as I went down the street to market, I heard some awful screaming in there, and I asked a girl, standing on the pavement, what it meant; and she said Mrs. Barkoff was whipping a colored woman; then, when I came back there was a crowd of children and colored people round the back gate, and one of them told me the woman was dead, and that she died shouting."
"Oh, God, how fearful is this!" exclaimed Miss Nancy, as the big tears rolled down her pale cheeks. "Give me, oh, sweet Jesus, the power to pray as Thou didst, to the Eternal Father, 'to forgive them, for they know not what they do!'"
"Come, Ann," continued the impetuous Biddy, "you go with me, and we'll try to find out all about it. We will go to see the woman."
"I cannot leave Miss Nancy."
"Yes, go with her, Ann; but don't allow her to say anything imprudent. Poor Biddy has such a good, philanthropic heart, that she forgets the patient spirit which Christianity inculcates."
With a strange kind of awe, I followed Biddy through the streets, scarcely heeding her impassioned garrulity. The blood seemed freezing in my veins, and my teeth chattered as though it had been the depth of winter. As we drew near the place, I knew the house by the crowd that had gathered around the back and side gates.
"Let us enter here," said Biddy, as she placed her hand upon the heavy plank gate at the back of the lot.
"Stop, Biddy, stop," I gasped out, as I held on to the gate for support, "I feel that I shall suffocate. Give me one moment to get my breath."