Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/152

154 A few years ago, in Louisiana, there was a family of three sons, one of them an invalid; they had a mulatto servant with them, who was, in stature, color and disposition, pretty much the same as the brothers, only a shade or so darker. This invalid brother would have no one to wait on him, he would not be taught anything, nor would he eat or drink unless he was waited on, taught and served by this mulatto. So they had to have this servant taught, to enable him to teach their brother. All this annoyed the other brothers very much.

In the course of a few years the father died. On his decease it was found that this mulatto was his son, and half-brother to those he waited on. The father dying suddenly, left him unprovided for. In a short time the sickly brother died, and then the two brothers tried to quarrel with him, and at one time tried to whip him, but he gave them a pretty good turn, and, when they were asleep, locked them in the room, and, taking as much money as he wanted, left the country.

As he was in the habit of traveling with his younger brother, there was nothing thought of it till he got to New York. He there married a white girl, and it was there I saw and conversed with him. He told me where I could find his mother, and requested me, when I went back to Louisiana, to find her, and tell her I had seen him, and all the particulars at the same time. He told me he was never struck a blow but once in his life, and that was by his brother; and he said he felt he would be willing to die to have revenge.

Some may think it strange that a white woman should marry a colored man in the North, not