There is more sympathy concealed beneath that black exterior than
words can express. He will go and see master; he will comfort him
within his prison walls; he will rejoin Daddy Bob, and be master's
friend once more. Mrs. Rosebrook, he is sure, will grant him any
privilege in her power. That good lady is forthwith solicited, and
grants Harry permission to go into the city any day it suits his
convenience-except Sunday, when his services are required for the
good of the people on the plantation. Harry is delighted with this
token of her goodness, and appoints a day when he will meet Miss
Franconia,--as he yet calls her,--and go see old master and Daddy. How
glowing is that honest heart, as it warms with ecstasy at the
thought of seeing "old master," even though he be degraded within
prison walls!
While this conversation is going on in the veranda, sundry aged
members of negro families--aunties and mammies--are passing backwards
and forwards in front of the house, casting curious glances at the
affection exhibited for the new preacher by "Miss Franconia." The
effect is a sort of reconciliation of the highly aristocratic
objections they at first interposed against his reception. "Mus' be
somebody bigger dan common nigger preacher; wudn't cotch Miss
Frankone spoken wid 'um if 'um warn't," says Dad Timothy's Jane, who
is Uncle Absalom's wife, and, in addition to having six coal-black
children, as fat and sleek as beavers, is the wise woman of the
cabins, around whom all the old veteran mammies gather for
explanations upon most important subjects.
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