He soon commenced purchasing to make up the third gang.  We took steamboat, and went to Jefferson City, a town on the Missouri river.  Here we landed, and took stage for the interior of the State.  He bought a number of slaves as he passed the different farms and villages.  After getting twenty-two or twenty-three men and women, we arrived at St. Charles, a village on the banks of the Missouri.  Here he purchased a woman who had a child in her arms, appearing to be four or five weeks old.

We had been travelling by land for some days, and were in hopes to have found a boat at this place for St. Louis, but were disappointed.  As no boat was expected for some days, we started for St. Louis by land.  Mr. Walker had purchased two horses.  He rode one, and I the other.  The slaves were chained together, and we took up our line of march, Mr. Walker taking the lead, and I bringing up the rear.  Though the distance was not more than twenty miles, we did not reach it the first day.  The road was worse than any that I have ever travelled.

Soon after we left St. Charles, the young child grew very cross, and kept up a noise during the greater part of the day.  Mr. Walker complained of its crying several times, and told the mother to stop the child’s d——­d noise, or he would.  The woman tried to keep the child from crying, but could not.  We put up at night with an acquaintance of Mr. Walker, and in the morning, just as we were about to start, the child again commenced crying.  Walker stepped up to her, and told her to give the child to him.  The mother tremblingly obeyed.  He took the child by one arm, as you would a cat by the leg, walked into the house, and said to the lady,

“Madam, I will make you a present of this little nigger; it keeps such a noise that I can’t bear it.”

“Thank you, sir,” said the lady.

The mother, as soon as she saw that her child was to be left, ran up to Mr. Walker, and falling upon her knees begged him to let her have her child; she clung around his legs, and cried, “Oh, my child! my child! master, do let me have my child! oh, do, do, do.  I will stop its crying, if you will only let me have it again.”  When I saw this woman crying for her child so piteously, a shudder,—­a feeling akin to horror, shot through my frame.  I have often since in imagination heard her crying for her child:—­

    “O, master, let me stay to catch
      My baby’s sobbing breath,
    His little glassy eye to watch,
      And smooth his limbs in death,

    And cover him with grass and leaf,
      Beneath the large oak tree: 
    It is not sullenness, but grief,—­
      O, master, pity me!

    The morn was chill—­I spoke no word,
      But feared my babe might die,
    And heard all day, or thought I heard,
      My little baby cry.

    At noon, oh, how I ran and took
      My baby to my breast! 
    I lingered—­and the long lash broke
      My sleeping infant’s rest.