For six months the Care-Taker of Ravens had under His sole keeping a brave head as black as theirs, and a heart like that of the pious negro, who, in a Southern revival-hymn is thus referred to:—
"O! O!
Him hab face jus' like de crow,
But de Lor' gib him heart like snow."
(The most Southern slaves, who had never travelled and seen snow, found greater reality in the image of "cotton wool," and used to sing the hymn with that variation.) At the end of that time, contrary to our most sanguine expectations, John Peterson appeared. Nor John Peterson alone, for when he rang our door-bell he put into the arms of a nice-looking mulatto woman of thirty a little youngster about two years old.
A new servant, with some trepidation, showed them up to "Massa's" study. We had weeded John's dialect of that word before he went away, but he had been six months since then in a servile atmosphere. He stood at the open study-door. My father stopped shaving, and let the lather dry on his face, as he shielded with his hand the eyes he in vain tried to believe. Yes, veritably, John Peterson!
But John Peterson could not speak. He choked visibly; and then, pointing to the two beside him, blurted out,—
"I's done did it, Massa!" and broke entirely down.
Again it was Ænon generally, and there was more baptizing done.
John had made a march somewhat like Sherman's. He had crossed the entire States of Virginia and Maryland, carrying two non-combatants, and no weapon of his own but a knife,—subsisting his army on the enemy all the way,—using negro guides freely, but never sending them back to their masters,—and terminating his brilliant campaign with an act of bold, unconstitutional confiscation. He couldn't have found a Chief-Justice in the world to uphold him in it at that time.
Hiding by day and walking by night, with his boy strapped to his back and his wife by his side, he had come within thirty miles of the Maryland line, when one night the full moon flashed its Judas lantern full upon him, and, being in the high-road, he naturally enough "tuk a scar'." Freedom only thirty miles off,—that vast territory behind him, three times traversed for her dear sake and Love's,—a slave-owner's stable close by,—a wife and a baby crouching in the thicket,—God above saying, "The laborer is worthy of his hire." No Chief-Justice in the world could have convinced that man.
With an inspired touch,—the tactus eruditus of a bitter memory and a glorious hope,—John felt for and found the best horse in the stable, saddled him, led him out without awakening a soul, and, mounting, took his wife before him with the baby in her arms. A pack of deerhounds came snuffing about him as he rode off; but, for a wonder, they never howled.