nobody to care for them,--they are just left to grow and fatten
like swine, till they are in condition to be sold or to be broken
in to their tasks in the field. Utterly neglected, they contract,
of necessity, lazy and vicious habits, and it is no wonder they have
to be whipped and broken in to work as animals to the yoke or harness;
and no wonder that under such treatment for successive generations,
the race should become so reduced in mental and moral ability,
as to be thought by many incapable of ever reclaiming a position among
the enlightened nations of the earth. Oh, what a weight of guilt
have the people of our country incurred in allowing four millions
of those poor people to be so trodden down in the very midst of us!

When the children reached home again they found Mammy Grace's
cabin quite full of men and women, shouting, singing, and talking
in a way quite unintelligible to our little stranger.
After she had dropped upon her cot for the night, she lifted her
head and ventured to ask what those people had been about.

"Don' ye know, chile? We's had a praisin'-meetin'. We has 'em ebery week,
one week it's here, and one week it's ober to General Doolittle's,
ober de hill yonder. Ef ye's a good chile, honey, ye shall go wid
yer old mammy some time, ye shall."

"What do you do?" asked Tidy.

"We praises, chile,--praises de Lord, and den we prays too."

"What's that?"

"Laws, chile, ye don't know noffin. Whar's ye been fotched up