"Why do you ask that? I have lost a little one."

"Then you will feel for me. I have lost two, one after another,--left
'em buried there when I came away; and I had only this one left. I
never slept a night without him; he was all I had. He was my comfort and
pride, day and night; and, ma'am, they were going to take him away from
me,--to _sell_ him,--sell him down south, ma'am, to go all alone,--a
baby that had never been away from his mother in his life! I couldn't
stand it, ma'am. I knew I never should be good for anything, if they
did; and when I knew the papers the papers were signed, and he was sold,
I took him and came off in the night; and they chased me,--the man that
bought him, and some of Mas'r's folks,--and they were coming down right
behind me, and I heard 'em. I jumped right on to the ice; and how I got
across, I don't know,--but, first I knew, a man was helping me up the
bank."

The woman did not sob nor weep. She had gone to a place where tears
are dry; but every one around her was, in some way characteristic of
themselves, showing signs of hearty sympathy.

The two little boys, after a desperate rummaging in their pockets, in
search of those pocket-handkerchiefs which mothers know are never to
be found there, had thrown themselves disconsolately into the skirts of
their mother's gown, where they were sobbing, and wiping their eyes and
noses, to their hearts' content;--Mrs. Bird had her face fairly hidden
in her pocket-handkerchief; and old Dinah, with tears streaming down her
black, honest face, was ejaculating, "Lord have mercy on us!" with all
the fervor of a camp-meeting;--while old Cudjoe, rubbing his eyes very
hard with his cuffs, and making a most uncommon variety of wry faces,
occasionally responded in the same key, with great fervor. Our senator