“‘I know it’s hard, Peter,’ says Lecta; ‘but there’s an end comin’ to all this; and dad won’t live always, perhaps.’ And I’d often heard her say, arter master had been abusin’ on me, ‘I declare, I shouldn’t be a bit astonished at all, to see the devil come, and take dad off, bodily—so there.’
“Well, while I stood there a cryin’, out comes Julia, and asks me what I was a cryin’ at? ‘What’s the matter?’ says she.
“‘Matter ’nough,’ says I, ‘for master takes all I can arn days and nights, tu.’
“‘What?’ says Julia, ‘dad han’t gone up to Ludlow’s arter your pain’ter money?’
“‘Yes he has,’ I says.
“‘Well,’ says she, ‘it’s no mor’n you can expect from a dumb old hog.’ ☜
Now, that speech come from a darter, and a pretty smart darter tu, and it was jist coarse ’nough language to use ’bout master, tu; but Miss Julia never was in the habit of makin’ coarse speeches. ‘But never mind, Peter,’ says she, ‘’twill be time to take wheat down to Albany, pretty soon, and then you’ll git pay for your pain’ter.’
“‘Yis,’ says I, ‘and I’ll git pay for a good many other things, tu.’
☞ “Now, Mr. L——, I wants to ax you what reason, or right, there is, in the first place, of stealin’ a man’s body and soul, to make a slave on him? ☜ and then for stealin’ his money he gits for killin’ pain’ters, nights?
☞ But the slave ain’t a man, and can’t be, a slave is a thing; he’s jist what the slave laws calls him, ☞ a chattel, property, jist like a horse, and like a horse he can’t own the very straw he sleeps on. But, never mind, ☞ there’s a judgment day a comin’ bim’by. ☜ ‘And when he maketh inquisition for blood, he remembereth them.’ You recollect you preached from that text a Sunday or two ago, and said, if my memory sarves me right, that, at the judgment day, God would require of every slaveholder in the universe, the blood of every soul he bought, and sold, and owned, as property; for ’twas trafficin’ in the image of the great God Almighty. Ah! that’s true, and I felt so when you said it.”