Page:Negro poets and their poems (IA negropoetstheirp00kerl).pdf/93

Rh to be taken away as she had been brought—in a wagon; and it was so done. It seems that one-half of her blood was African and the other half was divided between Indian and English, though it is impossible to be sure of the exact proportion. An account of her in those days by one who knew her reveals her as one of nature's poets—a Phillis Wheatley of the wash-tubs “She was very fervent in her religious devotions”—so runs this account—“and a very hard worker. She would sometimes wash nearly all night and then have periods of prayer and exaltation. Then again during the day she would draw from her bosom a favorite book and pause to read over the wash-tub. She had a strong dramatic instinct and would frequently make up little plays of her own and represent each character vividly.” Of such mothers are seers and poets born. And so in this instance it proved to be.

At the age of twenty, while yet a slave, she was married, under the common law—though marriage it was not called—to a Scotch-Irishman, a prominent citizen of Louisville, her employer at the time, who was distinguished by a notably handsome physique and a great fondness for books. Of this union was born, at Bardstown, a son, Joseph, so named for the dreamer of biblical story.

The vision-seeing slave mother, her mind running on the bondage of her people, named her son Joseph in the hope of his becoming great in the