Tom shuddered at these frightful words, spoken with a sullen, impassioned earnestness.
"O, Lord have mercy on ye! poor crittur. Han't ye never heard of Jesus Christ?"
"Jesus Christ,—who's he?"
"Why, he's the Lord," said Tom.
"I think I've hearn tell o' the Lord, and the judgment and torment. I've heard o' that."
"But did n't anybody ever tell you of the Lord Jesus, that loved us poor sinners, and died for us?"
"Don't know nothin' 'bout that," said the woman; "nobody han't never loved me, since my old man died."
"Where was you raised?" said Tom.
"Up in Kentuck. A man kept me to breed chil'en for market, and sold 'em as fast as they got big enough; last of all, he sold me to a speculator, and my Mas'r got me o' him."
"What set you into this bad way of drinkin'?"
"To get shet o' my misery. I had one child after I come here; and I thought then I'd have one to raise, cause Mas'r wasn't a speculator. It was de peartest little thing! and Missis she seemed to think a heap on 't, at first; it never cried,—it was likely and fat. But Missis tuck sick, and I tended her; and I tuck the fever, and my milk all left me, and the child it pined to skin and bone, and Missis would n't buy milk for it. She wouldn't hear to me, when I telled her I hadn't milk. She said she knowed I could feed it on what other folks eat; and the child kinder pined, and cried, and cried, and cried, day and night, and got all gone to skin and bones, and Missis got sot agin it, and she said 't wan't nothin' but crossness. She wished it was dead, she said; and she would n't let me have it o' nights, cause, she
