“I can’t go, ole missus,” he said, shaking his gray head, as he rose from emptying an armful of lightwood knots into the wood box, and dusted the splinters from his sleeve. “I can’t go, nohow, and leave young missus and de chillun in dese yere times. Mars Ben he done die, and lef’ me to take care o’ dese yere darlins o’ hisen, and no kind o’ proclamation, dis side de Jordan o’ def, gwine to free ole Scipio from dat charge.”
“But don’t you want to be free if the rest are?”
“Yes, ole missus, but ef de Lord mean to bring freedom to dis ole nigger, he kin fin’ him here. Ef He mean to fetch our people dry shod tru dis Red Sea o’ blood, outen de house o’ bondage, den when I hears de soun’ o’ dem timbrels, and de dancin’, an’ de shoutin’, I praise Him too; but I don’t tink He gwine to be angry kase one ole man love his home so much ’til he got to stay behind and weep wid dem in de house where de eldest born am slain.”
And faithfully he kept his promise to the slain. But see! I began to tell you the story of that memorable Christmas-time, and am letting the shadows of the intervening years crowd between me and the Yule-log. Avaunt! ye ghosts of bitter days of want, of hatred and contention; the spirit of peace and good-will exorcise ye from the hearth of Christmas memories!
I was going to tell you how Uncle Scipio undertook to save us from despair in that terrible time.
We, the much abused community of infants, had submitted with tolerable fortitude to taking our rye substitute for coffee, sweetened with sorghum, and similar hardships; but now, as the holidays approached, and we saw no signs of festivity, we began to feel great apprehensions.
We resolved to confide our fears to Scipio.
“Do you think,” I asked him one evening, as we sat in our usual evening attitudes before the fire, “that old ‘Santy’ will forget us this year because it is so cold and dark, and because everybody is so sad, and?—”
Here my griefs overcame utterance: I could say no more.