"You have work'd hard to-day, my son."
"I've been mowing."
The widow's heart felt another pang.
"Not _all day_, Charley?" she said, in a low voice; and there was a
slight quiver in it.
"Yes, mother, all day," replied the boy; "Mr. Ellis said he couldn't
afford to hire men, for wages are so high. I've swung the scythe ever
since an hour before sunrise. Feel of my hands."
There were blisters on them like great lumps. Tears started in the
widow's eyes. She dared not trust herself with a reply, though her
heart was bursting with the thought that she could not better his
condition. There was no earthly means of support on which she had
dependence enough to encourage her child in the wish she knew he was
forming--the wish not utter'd for the first time--to be freed from his
bondage. "Mother," at length said the boy, "I can stand it no longer.
I cannot and will not stay at Mr. Ellis's. Ever since the day I first
went into his house I've been a slave; and if I have to work so much
longer I know I shall run off and go to sea or somewhere else. I'd as
leave be in my grave as there." And the child burst into a passionate
fit of weeping.
His mother was silent, for she was in deep grief herself. After some
minutes had flown, however, she gather'd sufficient self-possession to
speak to her son in a soothing tone, endeavoring to win him from his
sorrows and cheer up his heart. She told him that time was swift--that
in the course of a few years he would be his own master.
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