and added, "He's sound asleep on the floor."
"If he's so much trouble to you," said Sukey, "I wish you'd give him to me. I always thought I should like to have a nigger."
"You may have him if you want him," replied Mrs. Lawton. "He's nothing but a pester, and he takes up a quarter part of Chloe's time. But you'd better take him before she gets home, for she'll make a fuss; and if he wakes up he'll cry."
Sukey had a plan in her mind, suggested by the sight of the silk gown, and she was eager to get possession of little Tommy. She said her horse was tackled to the wagon, all ready to start for home, and there was some straw in the bottom of it. The vehicle was soon at the widow's door, and by careful management the child was placed on the straw without waking; though Catharine said she heard him cry before the wagon was out of sight.
Chloe hurried through her work on the beach, and came home at a quick pace; for she was longing to see her darling, and she had some misgivings as to how he was treated in her absence. She opened the kitchen-door with the expectation that Tommy would spring toward her, as usual, exclaiming, "Mammy! mammy!" The disappointment gave her a chill, and she ran out to call him. When no little voice responded to the call, she went to the sitting-room and said, "Missis, have you seen Tommy?"
"He a'n't been here," replied Mrs. Lawton, evasively. "Can't you find him?"
The Widow was a regular communicant of the Reverend Mr. Gordonmammon's church; but she was so blinded by slavery that it never occurred to her there was any sin in thus trifling with a mother's feelings. When Chloe had hurried out of the room, she said to her daughter, in a tone of indifference, "One good thing will come of giving Tommy to Sukey Larkin,—she won't come spying about here for one spell; she'll be afraid to face Chloe."
In fact, she herself soon found it rather unpleasant to face Chloe; for the bereaved mother grew so wild with anxiety, that the hardest heart could not remain untouched. "O missis! why didn't you let me take Tommy with me" exclaimed she. "He played with hisself, and wasn't no care to me. I s'pose he was lonesome, and runned down to the beach to look for mammy; an' he's got drownded." With that thought she rushed to the door to go and hunt for him on the sea-shore.
Her mistress held her back with a strong arm, and, finding it impossible to pacify her, she at last said, "Sukey Larkin wanted Tommy, and I told her she might have him; she'll take good care of him."
The unhappy bondwoman gazed at her with an expression of intense misery, which she was never afterward able to forget. "O missis! how could you do it?" she exclaimed; and, sinking upon a chair, she covered her face with her apron.
"Sukey will be good to him," said Mrs. Lawton, in tones more gentle than usual.
"He'll cry for his mammy," sobbed Chloe. "O missis! 't was cruel to take away my little Tommy."
The Widow crept noiselessly out of the room, and left her to wrestle with her grief as she could. She found the minister in the sitting-room, and told him she had given away little Tommy, but that she wouldn't have done it if she had thought Chloe would be so wild about it; for she doubted whether she should get any work out of her for a week to come.
"She'll get over it soon," said the minister. "My cow lowed dismally, and wouldn't eat, when I sold her calf; but she soon got used to doing without it."
It did not occur to him as included within his pastoral duties to pray with the stricken slave; and poor Chloe, oppressed with an unutterable sense of loneliness, retired to her straw pallet, and late in the night sobbed herself to sleep. She woke with a weight on her heart, as if there was somebody dead in
