as they waited with anxious looks and quivering hearts to hear their doom, filling up the dreary moments with thoughts of the chances and changes which overhung their future.
A bright-eyed boy, of twelve years old,
"A brave, free-hearted, careless one,"
with a proud spirit playing in every line of his handsome face, and in every movement of his graceful form, was first called to the auction-block. His good qualities were rapidly enumerated, his limbs rudely examined, his soundness vouched for, and he became the chattel personal of a Georgian, who boasted of his good bargain; and on being warned that he would have trouble with the boy, declared with an oath, that he would "soon take the devil out of him."
Matty, a sister of this lad, was next placed upon the stand. Her beauty, which the excitement of that dreadful moment only served to heighten, hushed for awhile the coarse jests of the crowd. She was a splendid-looking creature, just entering upon womanhood. But her beauty proved, as beauty must ever prove to a slave woman, a deadly curse. It enhanced her market value, and sealed her deadly fate. It attracted the eye, and inflamed the passions of a wealthy Louisianian, named St. Laurent, who gave a thousand dollars in hard gold in exchange for her, that he might make her his petted favorite. Wives, mothers, daughters of America, have you nothing to do with slavery, when such is the fate of slave women? Can you sit silent, and at your ease, knowing that such things are?
When Matty was removed from the auction-block, she fell upon her brother's neck, and wept such tears as only they can weep whom slavery parts, never to meet again.
"Christine!" cried the loud voice of the auctioneer. Matty checked her passionate grief, and turning saw her mother, with her baby in her arms, standing where she herself had stood but just before. Quickly her keen eye sought the form of her new master. With a sudden impulse she threw herself at his feet, exclaiming, "O master, master, do buy my mother too!" The man gazed for a moment on the beautiful face upturned to his, with a look which made the lashes droop over her pleading eyes, and tapping her cheek with his finger, he said,
"What! coaxing so early, my pretty one? No, no; it will not do; I have no use for the old woman."
"Oh, master, she is not old. Do buy my mother, master!"
"Here is a prize for you, gentlemen," broke in the harsh tones of the auctioneer. "There is the best housekeeper and cook in all Virginia. Who bids for her? $300 did you say, sir? $325—thanks, gentlemen, but I cannot sell this woman for a song. She is an excellent seamstress. $400—$450—$500—I am glad to see you are warming up a little, gentlemen,—but she is worth more money than that. Look at her! What a form! what an eye! what arms!—there is muscle for you, gentlemen. Upon my honor she is the flower of the lot,—a dark-colored rose,—black, but comely; and her baby goes with her. $550, did I hear you say, sir? Will no one give more than $550 for such a woman and baby?"