Page:The Homes of the New World- Vol. III.djvu/310

Rh atmosphere—they who had been accustomed to the labour of the open fields.

I asked some women who were employed in winding, how they liked it. Two of them replied that they liked it very well, as well as any other work. An elderly woman, however, with a good countenance, said, with an expression of deep dejection and weariness, no, she did not like this work; she would rather work out in the fields. I did not wonder at this, for the place was not like one of the Lowell Mills.

The home here is full of gay, youthful countenances, six boys and two girls, the youngest of which is the image and delight of her father; and Mrs. C. is a youthful, pretty, and happy mother of this handsome flock of children.

Not far from the house is a troop of little black children, seventy or eighty in number, whom I visited this evening, and who wanted mothers. A couple of witch-like negro-women, with rods in their hands, governed the troop by fear and terror. I had been told that they also taught the children to pray. I gathered a little flock around me, and slowly repeated to them the Lord's prayer, bidding them read the words after me. The children grinned, laughed, showed their white teeth, and evinced very plainly that none of them knew what that wonderful prayer meant, nor that they had a Father in heaven.

The children were well fed. They were kept here, separated from their parents on account of fever raging on the plantations where they worked.

If I have not found here the reformer whom I expected, I have heard of two such planters, the one in Florida, the other in Georgia, who have established schools for the children of their negro slaves, with the intention of preparing them for good and free human beings. One of these gentlemen, Mr. N., is said to have the greatest hopes of the susceptibility for cultivation in the negro