Page:Behind the scenes, or, Thirty years a slave and four years in the White House.djvu/143

Rh woman, fresh from a life of servitude. She had never ventured beyond a plantation until coming North. The change was too radical for her, and she could not exactly understand it. She thought, as many others thought, that Mr. and Mrs. Lincoln were the government, and that the President and his wife had nothing to do but to supply the extravagant wants of every one that applied to them. The wants of this old woman, however, were not very extravagant.

"Why, Missus Keckley," said she to me one day, "I is been here eight months, and Missus Lingom an't even give me one shife. Bliss God, childen, if I had ar know dat de Government, and Mister and Missus Government, was going to do dat ar way, I neber would 'ave corned here in God's wurld. My old missus us't gib me two shifes eber year." I could not restrain a laugh at the grave manner in which this good old woman entered her protest. Her idea of freedom was two or more