All his affectionate, faithful service, all his hardships for our sakes, the Averill raid, rushed upon my memory. I bade him put me in communication with the agent. I found that I could save the boy only by buying him. A large sum of gold was named as the price. I unbuckled my girdle and counted my handful of gold—one hundred and six dollars. These I offered to the agent (who was a noted negro trader), and although it was far short of his figures, he made out my bill of sale receipted.
When John appeared with smiling face he informed me with his thanks that he belonged to me.
"You are a free man, John," I said. "I will make out your papers and I can very easily arrange for you to pass the lines."
"I know that," he said. "Marse Roger has often told me I was a free man. I never will leave you till I die. Papers indeed! Papers nothing! I belong to you—that's where I belong."
All that dreadful winter he was faithful to his promise, cheerfully bearing, without wages, all the privations of the time. Sometimes, when the last atom of food was gone, he would ask for money, sally forth with a horse and light cart, and bring in peas and dried apples. Once a week we were allowed to purchase the head of a bullock, horns and all, from the commissary; and a small ration of rice was allowed us by the government. A one-armed boy, Alick, who had been reared in my father's family, now wandered in to find his old master, and installed himself as my father's servant.
The question that pressed upon me day and night was: How, where, can I earn some money? to be answered by the frightful truth that there could be no opening for me anywhere, because I could not leave my children.
One wakeful night, while I was revolving these things, a sudden thought darted, unbidden, into my sorely oppressed mind:—
"Why not open the trunk from Washington? Something may be found there which can be sold."
At an early hour next morning John and Alick brought the trunk from the cellar. Aunt Jinny, Eliza, and the children gathered around. It proved to be full of my old Washington finery. There were a half-dozen or more white muslin gowns, flounced and trimmed with Valenciennes lace, many yards; there was a rich bayadere silk gown trimmed fully with guipure lace; a green silk dress with gold embroidery; a blue and silver brocade,—these last evening gowns. There was a paper box containing the shaded roses I had worn to Lady Napier's ball, the ball at which Mrs. Douglas and I had dressed alike in gowns of tulle. Another box held the garniture of green leaves and gold grapes which had belonged to the green silk; and still another the blue and silver feathers for the brocade. An opera cloak trimmed with fur; a long purple velvet cloak; a purple velvet "coalscuttle" bonnet, trimmed with white roses; a point lace handkerchief; Valenciennes lace; Brussels lace; and at the bottom of the trunk a package of ciel blue zephyr, awakening reminiscences of a passion which I had cherished for knitting shawls and "mariposas" of zephyr,—such was the collection I had discovered.
The velvet cloak had come to grief. Somebody had put the handsome books President Pierce had given me into this box, for special safe-keeping; and all these years the cloak had cushioned the books so that they made no inroads upon the other articles, and had given up its own life in their protection. Not an inch of the garment was ever fit for use. It was generously printed all over with the large cords and tassels of its own trimming.