trying to locate the other in the strife which they had passed
through on opposite sides.



CHAPTER IX.

A BRUISED REED.


"Eliab Hill," said Le Moyne, when they came at length to the subject
in relation to which the interview had been solicited, "was born
the slave of Potem Desmit, on his plantation Knapp-of-Reeds, in
the lower part of the county. His mother was a very likely woman,
considerable darker than he, but still not more than a quadroon, I
should say. She was brought from Colonel Desmit's home plantation
to Knapp-of-Reeds some little time before her child was born. It
was her first child, I believe, and her last one. She was a very
slender woman, and though not especially unhealthy, yet never
strong, being inclined to consumption, of which she finally died.
Of course his paternity is unknown, though rumor has not been silent
in regard to it. It is said that a stubborn refusal on his mother's
part to reveal it led Colonel Desmit, in one of his whimsical
moods, to give the boy the name he bears. However, he was as bright
a child as ever frolicked about a plantation till he was some
five or six years old. His mother had been a house-servant before
she was sent to Knapp-of-Reeds, and being really a supernumerary
there, my father hired her a year or two afterward as a nurse for
my mother, who has long been an invalid, as you may be aware."