One very bitter day in March there was great commotion among the black
people of St Louis. The snow was falling thickly, the wind was
blowing. Inclement as the whole winter had been, this day seemed the
worst of all; but it did not deter the freed blacks from braving its
hardships, from hurrying in crowds from place to place, and above all
from repairing in vast crowds to their own churches. Every coloured
church in St Louis was full of anxious blacks, but they had not
assembled for any purposes of worship. Unless, indeed, we except that
heart worship which takes in the ever-present Christ, even when he comes
hungry, naked, and in the guise of a stranger. The black people of St
Louis made beds in the church pews and kindled fires in the basements.
Having made all preparations, they went, headed by their preachers, to
the quays; there to meet some six hundred famished and shivering
emigrants, who had come up the river all the way from the States of the
Mississippi Valley and Louisiana.
In extreme poverty and in wretched plight whole families had come,
leaving the plantations where they were born, and severing all those
local ties for which the negro has so strong an attachment. All of
these poor people, including the very young and the very aged, were
bound for Kansas.
This was the beginning of a great exodus of the negroes from the
Southern to the Northern States.
The cause did not seem at first very manifest; but it must be something
unusual, something more than mere fancy, which would induce women and
children, old and young, with common consent to leave their old homes
and natural climate, and face storms and unknown dangers in Northern
Kansas.
Mou-Setse, with his eyes, ears, and heart ever open, had heard something
of the dissatisfaction of the negroes in the South.
They were suffering, not, indeed, now from actual slavery, but from
wicked rulers who would give the coloured man no justice. Outrages,
murders, and wrongs of all descriptions were driving these fugitives
from their homes. They said little of hope in the future; it was all of
fear in the past. They were not drawn by the attractions of Kansas;
they were driven by the terrors of Louisiana. Happen what would, they
all resolved to fly, never to return. Death rather than return was
their invariable resolution.
Mou-Setse, as I have said, had heard of this exodus. Profound secret as
the negroes had kept it, yet it had reached his ears. He consulted his
black brothers and sisters in St Louis, and it was resolved that the
strangers should be well received--hence the preparations in the
churches, and hence the assemblage on the quays.
Mou-Setse was one of the last to leave the church where he had been most
busy. Just as he was about to turn away to help to fetch into warmth
and shelter the famished emigrants he turned round. Some voice seemed
to sound in his ears; some very strong impelling influence caused him to
pause. He entered one of the pews, sat down and buried his head in his
hands.
Something seemed to tell the black man that the desire of his eyes was
coming to him; that his life-work was bearing at last its fruit. So
sure was he of this that he forgot to pray. He only said several times,
"Tank de Lord; tank de Lord berry much."
Then he followed his companions to the quays. How often had he gone
there in vain! How often had he gazed at face after face, looking and
longing for the forms of those he loved! They had never greeted him.
Now his step was elastic, his face bright.
Two hours after he had left the church he entered it again, leading by
the hand a very old man and a bowed and aged woman.
"My fader and moder," he explained very simply to the bystanders. He
put the old couple in the most comfortable pew, and sat down by them.
They both seemed half dead. The woman lay nearly lifeless. Mou-Setse
took her limp and withered hand and began to rub it softly.
"How do you know them?" asked some interested bystanders who knew
Mou-Setse's story.
"De ole woman hab de smile," he said; "I neber forgot my moder's smile.
She looked at me on de quay, and she smiled, and my heart leaped, and I
said, `Tank de Lord, glory be to God.' I tole ye de Lord would help
me."
Just then the man stretched himself, opened his eyes, fixed them on
Mou-Setse, and began to mutter.
Mou-Setse bent his head to listen.
Suddenly he sprang to his feet. "Oh praise the Lord!" he exclaimed
again. "I said as de Lord would help me. Listen to de ole man, he is
talking in de tongue of the Akus, in the country of Yarriba. He was de
brave warrior, my fader was."
Yes, Mou-Setse was right. The fruit of long patience was at last
yielding to him its precious store, and the old warrior of the beautiful
African valley had come back through nobody knew what hardships, with
his aged wife, to be nursed, cherished, and cared for by a long-lost
son.
As soon as they were sufficiently revived Mou-Setse took them to the
comfortable home he had been so long getting ready for them. Here they
told him of their slavery, of the terrors they had undergone, of the
bitterness of knowing nothing of his fate, of the lonely days when they
had belonged to different masters; then of their release from slavery,
and how, as free man and woman, they had met again. But their hardships
had been great, for though they had so-called liberty, every privilege
belonging to a white man seemed to be denied them.
They resolved to fly with their brethren. Selling all they had, they
managed to scrape together enough money to pay for their passage in the
river steamer.
Penniless, famished, half dead, they arrived at St Louis.
"It is a good land you hab come to," said Mou-Setse when his mother had
finished her narrative, "a land flowing wid milk and honey. Yes, it is
a good land; and I am like Joseph, only better dan Joseph was, for I hab
got back my fader and moder too, praise de Lord."
"I am Jacob," said the old warrior slowly, "and you are, indeed, my son
Joseph. It is enough. Praise de Lord."
"De Lord is berry good. I tole ye so," exclaimed the aged wife and
mother.