Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/132

Rh of the peculiar nobility of the negro character when this approaches its proper development. This man is called Samedi, or Saturday, and was the servant of Mr. C.'s parents in St. Domingo when the celebrated massacre took place there, and from which he saved, at the peril of his own life, the two sons, then boys, of his master—my host being one of them. He carried them on his shoulders in the night, through all dangers, down to the harbour where he had secured for himself and the boys a passage in a small vessel to Charleston, in South Carolina. Safely arrived here, he placed the two boys at school, and hired himself out as a servant. He and the boys also had lost everything they possessed in the horrible night at St. Domingo. He had been alone able to save their lives. He now maintained and clothed them and himself by his labour. Each week he took to the boys each three dollars of his wages, and this he continued till the boys grew into young men, and he an old man.

My host went to sea, and acquired wealth by his ability and good fortune. Afterwards, when he was possessed of a plantation in Cuba, and had married, he took old Saturday to live with him; and now he took care of him in his turn, and every week gave to him three dollars as pocket-money in return for those which he had received from this magnanimous negro in his boyish years. Old Saturday lived here long and happily, and free from care, beloved and esteemed by all. He died two years since in extreme old age. He was an upright Christian, and very pious. It was, therefore, a surprise to his master after his death to find that he wore upon his breast an African amulet, a piece of folded paper printed very small, with letters and words in an African tongue, and to which the negroes appear to ascribe a supernatural power. But good Christianity does not trouble herself about such little heathenish superstition, the remains of twilight after the old night. Our good, Christian peasantry of Sweden cannot