'Nonsense,' I replied. 'You misjudge her.'
'I tell you, Edmund, she is a cold, selfish, sordid woman; all intellect, and no heart. If I had never seen her face, I should have known that by her voice, and the shake of her hand.'
But it was too late—I had engaged her; and at seven o'clock on the following morning she was on her way to the South.
I soon received information of her safe arrival at her destination, and the warm thanks of Preston for having sent him so agreeable a person, and one so well fitted to instruct his children.
The turpentine location was soon secured, and early in the following spring, Joe, with about a hundred 'prime hands,' commenced operations in the new field. Constantly increasing shipments soon gave evidence of the energy with which the negro entered upon his work; and by the end of the year, Preston had not only paid the advances we made on receiving the deed of the land, but also the note I had given for the purchase of Phyllis. For the first time in five years he was entirely out of our debt.
The next season he hired a force of nearly two hundred negroes, and generously gave Joe a small interest in the new business, with a view to the black's ultimately buying his freedom. His transactions soon became large and profitable both to him and to us. Shortly afterward he paid off the last of his floating debt, and his balances in our hands grew from nothing till they reached five and seven and often ten thousand dollars.
But heavy affliction overtook him in the midst of his prosperity. His wife and two eldest daughters were stricken down by a prevailing epidemic, and died within a fortnight of each other. A letter which I received from him at this time, will best relate these events. It was as follows:
My dear Friend:—I have sad, very sad news to tell you. A week ago to-day I followed the remains of my beloved wife to the grave. Overcome by watching with our children, and grief at their loss, about three weeks since she took their disease, and sinking rapidly, soon resigned her spotless spirit to the hands of her Maker. Overwhelmed by this treble affliction, I have not been able to write you before. Even now I can hardly hold a pen. I am perfectly paralyzed; I can neither act nor think—I can only feel.
You, who have seen her in our home, can realize what she was to my family, but none can know what she was to me: companion, friend, guide! My stay and support through long years of trial, she is taken from me just as prosperity is dawning on me, and I was hoping to repay, by a life of devotion, some part of what she had borne and suffered on my account. Another angel has been welcomed in heaven, but I am left here alone—alone with my grief and my remorse!