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POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY. 



little moment to have sufficient notice taken of it to accurately fix 

 the date. He was a boy old enough during the war, though, to 

 know something of the struggle going on around him, for, speaking 

 in public of Lincoln once, I heard him say: " My first acquaintance 

 with our hero was this: Night after night, before the dawn of day, 

 on an old slave plantation in Virginia, I recall the form of my 

 sainted mother bending over the bundle of rags that enveloped my 

 body, on a dirt floor, breathing a fervent prayer to Heaven that 



I*RK!JIDENT BOOKKK T. WaSIIINOTON. 



* Massa Lincoln ' might succeed, and that some day she and I might 

 be free." 



Another incident of those days I have heard him tell of in these 

 words: "Word was sent over the plantation for all ' tlie hands' 

 to come up to the 'big house.' We went, and to us men, women, 

 and children gathered in the yard some one standing on the veranda 

 read a paper. I was too young to understand why the men and 

 women around me slioiild liave begun to shout, ' ITallclujah! Praise- 



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