would require a psychological study of the negro character to enable
one to explain the spirit in which they flocked to the execution of
their comrade, their friend, in some instances their kinsman. They came
in holiday attire and with hurrying steps, and long before the hour
appointed the adjoining fence was crowded with eager spectators, and,
like flocks of blackbirds, they had filled every tree within five
hundred yards, chatting and bustling and moving around with no apparent
emotion except the desire to see.

At length the cart appeared on the brow of the hill, and every neck was
craned for a glimpse of the poor creature who sat on the coffin--a
pitiful-looking, half-dwarf mulatto, who gave you the idea of deformity
and distress without your being able to tell why. He walked bravely to
his place on the scaffold, singing and praying, protesting his innocence
and bequeathing forgiveness to his enemies, apparently full of faith,
like many others who by reason of weariness and despair have attained
resignation; but the fictitious piety born of nervous excitement, and
the abnormal elevation of feeling induced by continued spiritual
exhortation during weeks of unrest and suspense, both gave way when his
old mother, unsightly and pitiful as himself, asked leave to bid him
good-bye, and came tottering to his side, saying as well as she could
for the tears that choked her, "Oh, Tony! mammy ain't gwine back on you!
Mammy don't b'lieve you done it, she don't keer who 'kuses you.
Good-bye, my baby! good-bye! 'Twon't be long 'fo' mammy jines you an'
daddy whar dar ain't no onjestice an' no mizry. Mammy ain't gwine to
stay here long arter you goes."

He threw up his arms with a wild, sobbing cry: "Oh, mammy! mammy! can't
you do nothin' fer me? Ain't you got _no_ way to he'p me? Oh, de sun do
shine so pretty, an' de leaves shakes 'bout on de trees so natchul! An'
I nuvver knowed de birds to sing like dey does to-day. It ain't
fa'r--no, it's not fa'r to shet me up in de groun' for what I ain't
done. So many 'ginst one, an' me so little an' so po'! I ain't got a
fren' on top o' de yuth. Nary one outen all dese folks, what I use ter
go to shuckin's wid 'em, an' play de banjer, an' hunt possums--nary one
uv 'em didn't stand up for me an' try to git me off! Not eben you,
mammy, didn't try to git in jail an' gimme somethin' to wu'k my way out,
an' I a-lis'nin' night an' day! Night an' day, an' you nuvver come!"

"Lord! Lord! my baby