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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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Support the Monkey! Tell All your Friends and Teachers |
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The woman did not answer; she sat with her black eyes intently fixed on the floor. “May be it’s the way,” she murmured to herself; “but those that have given up, there’s no hope for them!- none! We live in filth, and grow loathsome, till we loathe ourselves! And we long to die, and we don’t dare to kill ourselves!- No hope! no hope! no hope!- this girl now,- just as old as I was! “You see me now,” she said, speaking to Tom very rapidly; “see what I am! Well, I was brought up in luxury; the first I remember is, playing about, when I was a child, in splendid parlors;- when I was kept dressed up like a doll, and com- pany and visitors used to praise me. There was a garden opening from the saloon windows; and there I used to play hide-and-go-seek, under the orange-trees, with my brothers and sisters. I went to a convent, and there I learned music, French, and embroidery, and what not; and when I was fourteen, I came out to my father’s funeral. He died very suddenly, and when the property came to be settled, they found that there was scarcely enough to cover the debts; and when the creditors took an inventory of the property, I was set down in it. My mother was a slave woman, and my father had always meant to set me free; but he had not done it, and so I was set down in the list. I’d always known who I was, but never thought much about it. Nobody ever expects that a strong, healthy man is a-going to die. My father was a well man only four hours before he died;- it was one of the first cholera cases in New Orleans. The day after the funeral, my father’s wife took her chil- |
