“I’m a little gal,” replied the child; and with the characteristic volubility of her race she continued, “and my name’s Dinah, and I’m five years old, and my daddy and mammy are free coloured people, and they lives a big piece off, and daddy works out, and mammy sells gingerbread and molasses-beer, and we have a sign over the door with a bottle and cake on it.”
Amy. But how did this man get hold of thee, if thy father and mother are free people? Thee can’t be bound to him, or he need not hide thee.
Dinah. Oh, I know, I ain’t bounded to him; I expect he stole me.
Amy. Stole thee! What, here in the free state of Pennsylvania?
Dinah. I was out picking huckle-berries in the woods up the roads, and I strayed off a big piece from home. Then the tinman comed along, driving his cart, and I run close to the side of the road to look, as I always does when anybody goes by. So he told me to come into his cart, and he would give me a tin mug to put my huckle-berries in, and I might chuse it myself, and it would hold them a heap better than my old Indian basket. So I was very glad, and he lifted me up into the cart; and I choosed the very best and biggest tin mug he had, and emptied my huckle-berries into it. And then he told me he’d give me a ride in his cart, and then he set me far back on a box, and he whipped his creatur, and druv, and druv, and jolted me so, I tumbled all down among the tins. And then he picked me up, and tied me fast with his handkercher to one of the back posts of the cart, to keep me steady, he said. And then, for all I was steady, I couldn’t help crying, and I wanted him to take me home to daddy and mammy. But he only sniggered at me, and said he wouldn’t, and bid me hush; and then he got mad, and because I couldn’t hush up just in a minute, he whipped me quite smart.
Orphy. Poor little thing!
Dinah. And then I got frightened, for he put on a wicked look, and said he’d kill me dead if I cried any more, or made the least noise. And so he has been carrying me along in his cart for two days and two nights, and he makes me hide away all the time, and he won’t let nobody see me. And I hate him, and yesterday, when I know’d he didn’t see me, I spit on the crown of his hat.
Amy. Hush! Thee must never say thee hates anybody.
Dinah. At night I sleeps upon the bag of feathers; and when he stops anywhere to eat, he comes sneaking to the back of the cart, and pokes in victuals (he has just now brung me some), and he tells me he wants me to be fat and good-looking. I was afeard he was going to sell me to the butcher, as Nac Willet did his fat calf, and I thought I’d axe him about it, and he laughed and told me he was going to sell me, sure enough, but not to a butcher. And I’m almost all the time very sorry, only sometimes I’m not; and then I should like to play with the tins, only he won’t let me. I don’t dare to cry out loud, for fear the naughty man would whip me, but I always moan when we’re going through woods, and there’s nobody in sight to hear me. He never lets me look out of the back of the cart, only when there’s nobody to see me, and he won’t let me sing even when I want to. And I moan most when I think of daddy and mammy, and how they are wondering what has become of me; and I think moaning does me good, only he stops me short.
Amy. Now, Orphy, what is to be done? The tinman has, of course, kidnapped this black child to take her into Maryland, where he can sell her for a good price, as she is a fat, healthy-looking thing, and that is a slave state. Does thee think we ought to let him take her off.