the large house of a Southern planter. Their shining skins gleamed
in the sun, as they rolled over each other in their play, and
their voices, as they chattered together, or shouted in glee,
reached even to the cabins of the negro quarter, where the old
people groaned in spirit, as they thought of the future of those
unconscious young revelers; and their cry went up, "O, Lord, how
long!"

Apart from the rest of the children, on the top rail of a fence,
holding tight on to the tall gate post, sat a little girl of
perhaps thirteen years of age; darker than any of the others, and
with a more decided _woolliness_ in the hair; a pure unmitigated
African. She was not so entirely in a state of nature as the
rollers in the dust beneath her; but her only garment was a short
woolen skirt, which was tied around her waist, and reached about
to her knees. She seemed a dazed and stupid child, and as her head
hung upon her breast, she looked up with dull blood-shot eyes
towards her young brothers and sisters, without seeming to see
them. Bye and bye the eyes closed, and still clinging to the post,
she slept. The other children looked up and said to each other,
"Look at Hatt, she's done gone off agin!" Tired of their present
play ground they trooped off in another direction, but the girl
slept on heavily, never losing her hold on the post, or her seat
on her perch. Behold here, in the stupid little negro girl, the
future deliverer of hundreds of her people; the spy and scout of
the Union armies; the devoted hospital nurse; the protector of
hunted fugitives; the eloquent speaker in public meetings; the
cunning eluder of pursuing man-hunters; the heaven guided pioneer
through dangers seen and unseen; in short, as she has well been
called, "The Moses of her People."