Page:The Story of Aunt Becky's Army-Life .djvu/136

100 where the colored people did the washing for the hospital and for us. Spencer, from the Twentieth Michigan Regiment, had charge of the clothing, as it was distributed weekly amongst the different wards.

It was quite amusing to go down to the river, and watch the gambols of the little darkies, whose fathers and mothers worked over the wash-troughs. The great black hose throwing its steady stream of water into the boiler was a source of some mystery to them, as they carefully avoided treading on its serpentine length, regarding it in the light of a living thing well calculated to inspire awe and respect.

I had little time to get interested in this portion of our people who were fleeing out of Egypt—my white brothers had my entire soul. I went one night to look upon the corpse of an old wrinkled woman who had died, one of their number, over whose sable remains the moans of loud lamentations resounded.

Naught belonging to the deceased could ever be used by a single blood relation, and her scanty possessions were soon scattered amongst the group of sympathizing friends around.

She looked very calm in her last sleep; the slave could wear no more fetters in that land—that blessed country from which no tinge of Africa's hue can debar the uprising spirit. Those hard bony hands had done their work on plantation, and in the planter's kitchen, and those dimmed eyes had looked upon the deliverers, as they broke the bondage of her people.

She could well lie down in peace, while children