I am afraid for you. I
know you are stronger and have less of the consumptive taint about
you than I, but I am afraid. You would have worked for me when I
was in college, and I have worked only for you, since that time.
All that I have saved--and I have saved all I could, for I knew
that my time was not long--is yours. I have some money on deposit,
some bonds, and a few articles of personal property--among the
latter, Midnight. All these are yours. It will leave you comfortable
for a time at least. Now, dear, promise that I shall be buried and
remain in the cemetery the Government is making for the soldiers
who fell in those last battles. Somehow, I think it will keep
you here, in order that you may be near me, and save you from the
disease which is devouring my life."
A week afterward his companions followed, with rever ed arms,
the funereally-caparisoned Midnight to the grounds of the National
Cemetery, and fired a salute over a new-made grave.
Nimbus, taking with him his helpless friend, had appealed, soon
after his purchase, to the officer of the Bureau for aid in erecting
a school-house at Red Wing. By him he had been referred to one
of those charitable associations, through whose benign agency the
great-hearted North poured its free bounty into the South immediately
upon the cessation of strife.
Perhaps there has been no grander thing in our history than the eager
generosity with which the Christian men and women of the North gave
and wrought, to bring the boon of knowledge to the recently-enslaved.
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