with grim branches waving in the breath of their own excitement, they
could hear above the tumult the clamor of the fight, the clashing of
the spears, and the ringing of the shields. They could see the
conqueror coming home in triumph. Then when he cried, "A-who, I say,
a-who is in Gideon's ahmy to-day?" and the wailing chorus took up the
note, "A-who!" it was too much even for frail Cassie, and, deserted by
the solicitous sisters, in the words of Mam' Henry, "she broke
a-loose, and faihly tuk de place."

Gideon had certainly triumphed, and when a little boy baby came to
Cassie two or three days later, she named him Gideon in honor of the
great Hebrew warrior whose story had so wrought upon her. All the
plantation knew the spiritual significance of the name, and from the
day of his birth the child was as one set apart to a holy mission on
earth.

Say what you will of the influences which the circumstances
surrounding birth have upon a child, upon this one at least the effect
was unmistakable. Even as a baby he seemed to realize the weight of
responsibility which had been laid upon his little black shoulders,
and there was a complacent dignity in the very way in which he drew
upon the sweets of his dirty sugar-teat when the maternal breast was
far off bending over the sheaves of the field.

He was a child early destined to sacrifice and self-effacement, and as
he grew older and other youngsters came to fill Cassie's cabin, he
took up his lot with the meekness of an infantile Moses. Like a Moses
he was, too, leading his little flock to the promised land, when he
grew to the age at which, barefooted and one-shifted, he led or
carried his little brothers and sisters about the quarters. But the