him, therefore, with great satisfaction. He was willing to gratify
him in any reasonable way, and so, after some rough jokes at his
expense, wrote out his marriage-license in these words, in pencil,
on the blank leaf of a notebook:

MR. WARE: Nimbus and Lugena want to take up with each other. You
have a pretty full force now, but I have decided to keep them and
sell some of the old ones--say Vicey and Lorency. Neither have had
any children for several years, and are yet strong, healthy women,
who will bring nearly as much as the girl Lugena. I shall make
up a gang to go South in charge of Winburn next week. You may send
them over to Louisburg on Monday. You had better give Nimbus the
empty house near the tobacco-barn. We need a trusty man there.
Respectfully, P. DESMIT.

So Nimbus went home happy, and on the Saturday night following, in
accordance with this authority, with much mirth and clamor, and with
the half-barbarous and half-Christian ceremony--which the law did
not recognize; which bound neither parties, nor master nor stranger;
which gave Nimbus no rights and Lugena no privileges; which neither
sanctified the union nor protected its offspring--the slave "boy"
and "gal" "took up with each other," and began that farce which
the victims of slavery were allowed to call "marriage." The sole
purpose of permitting it was to raise children. The offspring were
sometimes called "families," even in grave legal works; but there
was no more of the family right of protection, duty of sustenance
and care, or any other of the sacred elements which make the family
a type of heaven, than attends the propagation of any other species
of animate property. When its purpose had been served, the voice
of the master effected instant divorce. So, on the Monday morning