THE PRATTLINGS OF INSANITY—OLD WOUNDS REOPEN—THE WALK TO THE DOCTOR'S—INFLUENCE OF NATURE.

Upon my return to the house I hastened on to the cabin, hoping to find Aunt Polly almost entirely recovered. Passing hastily through the yard I entered the cabin with a light step, and to my surprise found her sitting up in a chair, playing with some old faded artificial flowers, the dilapidated decorations of Miss Tildy's summer bonnet, which had been swept from the house with the litter on the day before. I had never seen her engaged in a pastime so childish and sportive, and was not a little astonished, for her aversion to flowers had often been to me the subject of remark.

"What have you there that is pretty, Aunt Polly?" I asked with tenderness.

With a wondering, childish smile, she held the crushed blossoms up, and turning them over and over in her hands, said:

"Putty things! ye is berry putty!" then pressing them to her bosom, she stroked the leaves as kindly as though she had been smoothing the truant locks of a well-beloved child. I could not understand this freak, for she was one to whose uncultured soul all sweet and pretty fancies seemed alien. Looking up to me with that vacant glance which at once explained all, she said:

"Who's dar? Who is you? Oh, dat is my darter," and addressing me by the remembered name of her own long-lost child, she traversed, in thought, the whole waste-field of memory. Not a single wild-flower in the wayside of the heart was neglected or forgotten. She spoke of times when she had toyed and dandled her infant darling upon her knee; then, shudderingly, she would wave me off, with terror written all over her furrowed face, and cry, "Get you away, Masser is comin': thar, thar he is; see him wid de ropes; he is comin' to tar you 'way frum me. Here, here child, git under de bed, hide frum 'em, dey is all gwine to take you 'way—'way down de river, whar you'll never more see yer poor old mammy." Then sinking upon her knees, with her hands outstretched, and her eyes eagerly strained forward, and bent on vacancy, she frantically cried:

"Masser, please, please Masser, don't take my poor chile from me. It's all I is got on dis ar' airth; Masser, jist let me hab it and I'll work fur you, I'll sarve you all de days ob my life. You may beat my ole back as much as you please; you may make me work all de day and all de night, jist, so I ken keep my chile. Oh, God, oh, God! see, dere dey goes, wid my poor chile screaming and crying for its mammy! See, see it holds its arms to me! Oh, dat big hard man struck it sich a blow. Now, now dey is out ob sight." And crawling on her knees, with arms outspread, she seemed to be following some imaginary object, until, reaching the door, I feared in her transport of agony she would do herself some injury, and, catching her strongly in my arms, I attempted to hold her back; but she was endowed with a superhuman strength, and pushed me violently against the wall.

"Thar, you wretch, you miserble wretch, dat would keep me from my chile, take dat blow, and I wish it would send yer to yer grave."

Recoiling a few steps, I looked at her. A wild and lurid light gathered in her eye, and a fiendish expression played over her face. She clenched her hands, and pressed her old broken teeth hard upon her lips, until the blood gushed from them; frothing at the mouth, and wild with excitement, she made an attempt to bound forward and fell upon the floor. I screamed for help, and sprang to lift her up. Blood oozed from her mouth and nose; her eyes rolled languidly, and her under-jaw fell as though it were broken.

In terror I bore her to the bed, and, laying her down, I went to get a bowl of water to wash the blood and foam from her face. Meeting Amy at the door, I told her Aunt Polly was very sick, and requested her to remain there until my return.

I fled to the kitchen, and seizing a pan of water that stood upon the shelf, returned to the cabin. There I found young master bending over Aunt Polly, and wiping the blood-stains from her mouth and nose with his own handkerchief. This was, indeed, the ministration of the high to the lowly. This generous boy never remembered the distinctions of color, but with that true spirit of human brotherhood which Christ inculcated by many memorable examples, he ministered to the humble, the lowly, and the despised. Indeed, such seemed to take a firmer hold upon his heart. Here, in this lowly cabin, like the good Samaritan of old, he paused to bind up the wounds of a poor outcast upon the dreary wayside of existence.

Bending tenderly over Aunt Polly, until his luxuriant golden curls swept her withered face, he pressed his linen handkerchief to her mouth and nose to staunch the rapid flow of blood.

"Oh, Ann, have you come with the water? I fear she is almost gone; throw it in her face with a slight force, it may revive her," he said in a calm tone.

I obeyed, but there was no sign of consciousness. After one or two repetitions she moved a little, young master drew a bottle of sal volatile from his pocket, and applied it to her nose. The effect was sudden; she started up spasmodically, and looking round the room laughed wildly, frightfully; then, shaking her head, her face resumed its look of pitiful imbecility.

"The light is quenched, and forever," said young master, and the tears came to his eyes and rolled slowly down his cheeks. Amy, with Ben in her arms, stood by in anxious wonder; creeping up to young master's side, she looked earnestly in his face, saying—

"Don't cry, Masser, Aunt Polly will soon be well; she jist sick for little while. De lick Masser gib her only hurt her little time,—she 'most well now, but her does look mighty wild."

"Oh, Lord, how much longer must these poor people be tried in the furnace of affliction? How much longer wilt thou permit a suffering race to endure this harsh warfare? Oh, Divine Father, look pityingly down on this thy humble servant, who is so sorely tried." The latter part of the speech was uttered as he sank upon his knees; and down there upon the coarse puncheon floor we all knelt, young master forming the central figure of the group, whilst little Amy, the baby-boy Ben, and the poor lunatic, as if in mimicry, joined us. We surrounded him, and surely that beautiful heart-prayer must have reached the ear of God. When such purity asks for grace and mercy upon the poor and unfortunate, the ear of Divine grace listens.

"What fur you pray?" asked the poor lunatic.

"I ask mercy for sore souls like thine."

"Oh, dat is funny; but say, sir, whar is my chile? Whar is she? Why don't she come to me? She war here a minnit ago; but now she does be gone away."

"Oh, what a mystery is the human frame! Lyre of the spirit, how soon is thy music jarred into discord." Young master uttered this rhapsody in a manner scarcely audible, but to my ear no sound of his was lost, not a word, syllable, or tone!

"Poor Luce—is dat Luce?" and the poor, crazed creature stared at me with a bewildered gaze! "and my baby-boy, whar is he, and my oldest sons? Dey is all gone from me and forever." She began to weep piteously.

"Watch with her kindly till I send Jake for the doctor," he said to me; then rallying himself, he added, "but they are all gone—gone upon that accursed hunt;" and, seating himself in a chair, he pressed his fingers hard upon his closed eye-lids. "Stay, I will go myself for the doctor—she must not be neglected."

And rising from his chair he buttoned his coat, and, charging me to take good care of her, was about starting, but Aunt Polly sprang forward and caught him by the arms, exclaiming,

"Oh, putty, far angel, don't leab me. I kan't let you leab me—stay here. I has no peace when you is gone. Dey will come and beat me agin, and dey will take my chil'en frum me. Oh, please now, you stay wid me."

And she held on to him with such a pitiful fondness, and there was so much anxiety in her face, such an infantile look of tenderness, with the hopeless vacancy of idiocy in the eye, that to refuse her would have been harsh; and of this young master was incapable. So, turning to me, he said,

"You go, Ann, for the doctor, and I will stay with her—poor old creature I have never done anything for her, and now I will gratify her."

As the horses had all been taken by the pursuers of Lindy, I was forced to walk to Dr. Mandy's farm, which was about two miles distant from Mr. Peterkin's. I was glad of this, for of late it was indeed but seldom that I had been allowed to indulge in a walk through the woods. All through the leafy glory of the summer season I had looked toward the old sequestered forest with a longing eye. Each little bird seemed wooing me away, yet my occupations confined me closely to the house; and a pleasure-walk, even on Sunday, was a luxury which a negro might dream of but never indulge. Now, though it was the lonely autumn time, yet loved I still the woods, dismantled as they were. There is something in the grandeur of the venerable forests, that always lifts the soul to devotion! The patriarchal trees and the delicate sward, the wind-music and the almost ceaseless miserere of the grove, elevate the heart, and to the cultivated mind speak with a power to which that of books is but poor and tame.