May 20th, 1865.\u2014It is late at night and this has been a perfectly horrible day. For three days Sister Mag has been very ill; last night death seemed very near and this morning her dead baby was laid in a little white casket and buried in God\u2019s Acre. She does not know. She has known nothing for hours and the doctors give us little hope. Nellie and Fannie are nursing her. She may never be conscious again. Mother and Father do not leave her and poor Brother Amos is wretched.<\/p>\n
Jane left this morning without bathing and dressing Rebecca, so that job fell to my share. I usually dress Eddie myself anyway but Rebecca is badly spoiled and it is difficult. I coaxed them out in the ?ower garden and then Mother sent me with some directions to the cook. Now, this cook is my own Emeline, who has always professed to love me dearly. I went to the kitchen, but she was not there. I looked around but could not see a single one of the servants who were generally, at that hour, busily employed, each one, in his or her portion of the day\u2019s work. I went on to Emeline\u2019s house and she was standing in the middle of the ?oor, tying on a sash of blue ribbon, which would complete quite a stunning toilet. \u201cEmeline,\u201d I said, \u201cSister Mag is so sick and Mother sends the key-basket to you and she says have a good dinner, for Dr. Betton and Dr. Gamble will be here and she is leaving everything to you. Imagine how I felt when she answered thus:<\/p>\n
\u201cTake dat basket back ter your mother an\u2019 tell her if she want any dinner she kin cook it herself.\u201d<\/p>\n
I was hurt and dazed. I had not slept all night and I pleaded weakly, \u201cDon\u2019t say that Emeline, Sister Mag is so sick, the doctors think she will die.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cDey do? Well, what is dat ter me? I ain\u2019t make her sick, is I?\u201d<\/p>\n
Silently I left her house. They are free, I thought; free to do as they please. Never before had I had a word of impudence from any of our black folks but they are not ours any longer.<\/p>\n
Retracing my steps I stopped at the laundry door; Melissa stood beside the table ironing a snowy cloth.<\/p>\n
\u201cMelissa,\u201d I asked, \u201cwhat has become of the other servants?\u201d<\/p>\n
Slowly she raised her big brown eyes to my face, \u201cI thought you knowed dey wus all gone ter de meetin\u2019 out ter Centreville, dem black. soldiers, an\u2019 de white man wid \u2019em is sont messages ter all de folks cum terday an denounce our freedom. He kin save heself detrubble; I ain\u2019t no bond an\u2019 \u2019pressed slave. I ain\u2019t nuvver knowed no mother but Miss Patsy, an\u2019 she ben mighty good ter me.\u201d<\/p>\n
Mother did not have to cook the dinner, Adeline saved the day and though dinner was late, it was excellent and, by the time it was served, Sister Mag was conscious and the doctors say the danger is over. We are so thankful. ‘<\/p>\n
I have learned a lesson today: we must not expect too much of \u201cfree negroes.\u201d Nellie and Fannie could not have acted better than they did but of all the others on the plantation, only Melissa remained at her post and Adeline showed so much good feeling, such true sympathy, that I love her more than ever.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
May 20th, 1865.\u2014It is late at night and this has been a perfectly horrible day. For three days Sister Mag has been very ill; last night death seemed very near and this morning her dead baby was laid in a little white casket and buried in God\u2019s Acre. She does not know. She has known […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":21,"featured_media":93077,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[23],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-93558","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-through-some-eventful-years"},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/10\/Susa-Bradford-Eppes.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93558","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/21"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=93558"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/93558\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/93077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=93558"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=93558"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cw-chronicles.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=93558"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}