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Show 140 CHRISTINE . 'l'he group of human chattels excited great interest among the lookers·on, for they were a choice lot of prime negroes, and rumor said that he would get a rare bargain who bought that day. It was a saddening sight, that dusky group, whose only crime was being "-guilty of a akin Not colored like our own," as they waited with anxious looks and quivering hearts to hear their doom, filling up the dreary mo· ments with thoughts of the chances ancl changes which overhung their future. A bright-eyed boy, of twelve years old, "A brave, free-hearted, careless one/' with a proud spirit playing in every line of his hand· some face, and ju every movement of his graceful form, was first called to the auction·block. Ilis good qualities were rapidly enumerated, his limbs rudely examined, his soundness vouched for, and })e became the chattel personal of a Georgian, who boasted of his good bargain; and on being warned that he would have trouble with the boy, declared with an oath, that lie would " soon take the devil out of him." ) CHRISTINE. 141 Matty, a sister of this lad, was next placed upon the stand. ITer beauty, which the excitement of that dreadful moment only served to heighten, hushed for awhile the coarse jests of the crowd. She was a splendid·looking creature, just entering upon woman· hood. But her beauty proved, as beauty must ever prove to a slave woman, a deadly curse. It enhanced her market value, and sealed her dead! y fate. It at· tractcd the eye, and inilamcd the passions of a wr.althy Louisianian, named St. Laurent, who gave a thousand dollars in hard gold in exchange for her, that he might make her his petted favorite. Wives, mothers, daughters of America, have you nothing to do with slovery, when such is the fate of slave women? Can you sit silent, and at your ease, knowing that such things are? When Matty was removed from the auction-block, she fell upon her brother's neck, and wept such tears as only they can weep whom slavery parts, never to meet again. " Christine P' cried the loud voice of the auctioneer. Matty checked her passionate grief, and turning sow her mother, with her baby in her arms, standing where she herself had stood but just before. Quick! y her |
