The story of my life ; or, The sunshine and shadow of seventy years / by Mary A. Livermore ... with hitherto unrecorded incidents and recollections of three years' experience as an army nurse in the great Civil War, and reminiscences of twenty-five years' experiences on the lecture platform ... to which is added six of her most popular lectures ... with portraits and one hundred and twenty engravings from designs by eminent artists ...

DICK'S DESCRIPTION OF A SLAVE TRADER.

319

" He isn't a gentleman, anyway," said Mary, after studying him until he had disappeared within the house, "and so
hasn't come a visiting. I reckon he's come on some business
with Pa."
"I reckon he's a slave-trader," said Dick; "an' that he's
come to buy some of Pa's han's; he looks like one."
"Do all slave-traders look alike? " inquired Mary.
"All that I've ever seen, do.
They're all long and gawky, an' have
no hair on top o' their heads; an'
they all squint or are cross-eyed; an'
they're all bow-legged, or limp; an'
they all spit in the fire, an' they've
all had the small-pox, an' they all look
jess like this fellar."
We all laughed at Dick's graphic
description.
"Pray, how many slave-traders
have you seen, in the course of your
not very long life?" I asked.
" There's been two here afore, an'
there was one down to The Oaks,
when we were there. Jim an' me
talked with 'im. An' once when me Iian' Pa went to Boydton, I saw half a i
dozen of 'em, an' talked with 'em; THE ILL-FAVORED SLAVETRADER.
they're mighty mean ornary men, "They all look jess like this
slave-traders are. They all look jess felar."
like this fellar, an' wear jess such baggy, butte'nut breeches,
that don't fit 'em. I can tell if this fellar's a slave-trader,
quick as wink, when I hear 'im talk."
At the dinner-table we met the ill-favored man, who
answered Dick's description perfectly. Mr Henderson pre