No tutor had taught them how to walk,--they who moved on
health like skylarks on the air. Faithful, pure-minded, modest, natural,
they were still slaves, and their place in matrimony, which nature
would have set among the worthiest--superior in love, superior in
maternity, superior in length of days and enjoyment--was, by the freak
of man's _caste_, as doubtful as the mermaid's.
Roxy was a little the shorter and fuller of shape, the milder and more
pathetic; in Virgie the white race had left its leaner lines and greater
unrelenting. She said to Samson, with the pique her reflections
inspired,
"I never thought the first man to make love to me would be as black as
you."
"De white corn years," says Samson, "de rale sugar-corn, de blackbird
gits. None of dem white gulls and pigeons gits dat corn. A white feller
wouldn't suit you, Virgie."
"Why?" says Roxy, "Virgie was raised among white children; so was I. We
didn't know any difference till we grew up."
"Dat was what spiled ye," Samson said; "de colored man is de best
husban'. He ain't thinkin' 'bout business while he makin' love, like
Marster Milburn. The black man thinks his sweetheart is business enough,
long as she likes him. He works fur her, to love her, not to be makin' a
fool of her, and put his own head full of hambition, as dey calls it.
You couldn't git along wid one o' dem pale, mutterin' white men, Virgie.
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