“And what will they do with me and Nicholas when they get us sold?” continues the child, turning to Nicholas and taking him by the arm.

“Don’ kno’:  perhaps save ye fo’h sinnin’ agin de Lor’,” is the old slave’s quick reply.  She shakes her head doubtingly, and bursts into tears, as she takes Annette in her arms, presses her to her bosom, kisses and kisses her pure cheek.  How heavenly is the affection of that old slave—­how it rebukes our Christian mockery!

“Will they sell us where we can’t see mother, auntie?  I do want to see mother so,” says the child, looking up in the old slave’s face.  There seemed something too pure, too holy, in the child’s simplicity, as it prattled about its mother, for such purposes as it is about to be consigned to.  “They do not sell white folks, auntie, do they?  My face is as white as anybody’s; and Nicholas’s aint black.  I do want to see mother so! when will she come back and take care of me, auntie?”

“Lor’, child,” interrupts the old negro, suppressing her emotions, “no use to ax dem questions ven ye gwine t’ market.  Buckra right smart at makin’ nigger what bring cash.”

The child expresses a wish that auntie would take her back to the old plantation, where master, as mother used to call him, wouldn’t let them sell her away off.  And she shakes her head with an air of unconscious pertness; tells the old negro not to cry for her.

The cryer’s bell sounds forth its muddling peals to summon the customers; a grotesque mixture of men close round the stand.  The old slave, as if from instinct, again takes Annette in her arms, presses and presses her to her bosom, looks compassionately in her face, and smiles while a tear glistens in her eyes.  She is inspired by the beauty of the child; her heart bounds with affection for her tender years; she loves her because she is lovely; and she smiles upon her as a beautiful image of God’s creation.  But the old slave grieves over her fate; her grief flows from the purity of the heart; she knows not the rules of the slave church.

Annette is born a child of sorrow in this our land of love and liberty; she is a democrat’s daughter, cursed by the inconsistencies of that ever-praised democratic goodness.  A child! nothing more than an item of common trade.  It is even so; but let not happy democracy blush, for the child, being merchandise, has no claims to that law of the soul which looks above the frigidity of slave statutes.  What generosity is there in this generous land? what impulses of nature not quenched by force of public opinion, when the associations of a child like this (we are picturing a true story), her birth and blood, her clear complexion, the bright carnatic of her cheek, will not save her from the mercenary grasp of dollars and cents?  It was the law; the law had made men demons, craving the bodies and souls of their fellow men.  It was the white man’s charge to protect the law and the constitution; and any manifestation of sympathy for this child would be in violation of a system which cannot be ameliorated without endangering the whole structure:  hence the comments escaping from purchasers are only such as might have been expressed by the sporting man in his admiration of a finely proportioned animal.