“Oh, Sabby! sure you might know.”
“’Deed Sabby doan know.”
“Well, that gentleman the people cheered so. A man told papa they were all there to take leave of him. Didn’t they take leave of him in an odd way? Why, the men in big beards actually kissed him. I saw them kiss him. And the young girls! you saw what they did, Sabby. Those girls appear to be very forward.”
“Dey war’ nothin’ but trash—dem white gals.”
“But the gentleman? I wonder who he is? Do you think it’s a prince?”
The interrogatory was suggested by a remembrance. Only once in her life before had the child witnessed a similar scene. Looking out of a window in London, she had been spectator to the passage of a prince. She had heard the hurrahs, and seen the waving of hats and handkerchiefs. Alike, though with perhaps a little less passion—less true enthusiasm. Since then, living a tranquil life in one of the Lesser Antilles—of which her father was governor—she had seen little of crowds, and less of such excited assemblages as that just left behind. It was not strange she should recall the procession of the prince.
And yet how diametrically opposite were the sentiments that actuated the two scenes of which she had been spectator! So much that even the West Indian woman—the child of a slave—knew the difference.
“Prince!” responded Sabina, with a disdainful toss of the head, that proclaimed her a loyal “Badian.” “Prince in dis ’Merica country! Dere’s no sich ting. Dat fella dey make so much muss ’bout, he only a ’publican.”
“A publican?”
“Yes, missy. You dem hear shout, ‘Vive de publique!’ Dey all ’publicans in dis Unite States.”