Litchfield enquirer., 1862-11-27
nlisftIlo1lp.
BLIND TOM, THE SLAVE-A TRUE
 SKETCH.
Only a germ in 8 withered flower.

SKETCH
 Only germ in a withered flower.
 That the rain will bring out-sometine Sometime in the year ls.O, tobacco plan
 ter in Southern Georgia Uerry II. Oliver by
 nams) bought likely negro woman with some
 otksr field hands. Shs xas stout, tesxh mus
 clsd, willing, promised to be remua.rxtivs
 Servant ; her baby, however, boy few montAs old, was only thrown in as makeweirht to the
 bargain, or rather because Mr. Oliver would not consent to separate mother and chd Charity only could have induced him to take the picanin
 ny, in fact, for he Was hut lump of black flesh
 born blind, and with the vacant grin of idiocy
 they thought, already stamped on his face.-
 The two slaves were purchased, believe, from a trader it has been impossible. therefore, for me to ascertain where Tom was born or when. Georgia field hands are not accurate as Jews in preserving their genealogy Hey do not antci pate Messiah. A white man, you know, has that vague hope unconsciously latent in him. that he IS, shall give bilth to the great man of his race, helper, a proyider for the worlds hunger so he grows jealous with his blood j; the dead grandfather may have presaged the possible son besides, it is debt lie owes to this coming Saul to tell him whence he came There are some classes, free and slave, out of whom society has shed this hope they have no clan, no family names among them, there fore This idiot boy, chosen by God to be anointed with the holy chrism, is only Tom,', " Blind Tom," they call him in the Southern States with kind cadence always. being proud and fond of him and yet-nothing but Tom ?- That is pitiful. Just mushroom growth,- unknd, unexpected, not hoped for, for gen er'ions, owning no name to purify and honor and give away when he is dead His mother, at work to day in the Olive plantations, can never comprehend why her boy IS famous this gift of God to him means nothing to her. Moth ing to him, either, which is sad,!est of all he is unconscious, wears his crown as an idiot might. Whose fault is that Deeper than slavery the evil lies.
 Mir. Oliver did his duty we'll to the boy, being an observan: and thoroughly kind master The plantation was large, heartsome, faced the sun swartned with little black urchins, with plenty to eat, and nothing to do.
 All that Tom required. as he fattened out of ha- by into hoyhood, ,wss room in which to be warm, on the grass patch. or by the kitchen fires to be .t, n.,hh-- Si,, ternatey by the other hands He had a Eabit of crawling up the porches and vcranaas of the mansion, and squatting there in the sun, waiting for kind word or touch from those who went in and out. He seldom failed to re- ceive it. Southerners know nothing of the physical shiver of aversion with which even the Abolitionists of the North touch the negro so Tom, through his very helplessness, came to be a sort of pet in the family, a playmate, occa- sionally, of Mir. Divers own infant children. - The boy, creeping about day after day in the hot light, was as repugnant an object as the lizards in the neighboring swamp, and promised to be of as litlle use to his master. He was of the lowest negro type, from which only field hands can be msde-coal- black, with protruding heels, the ape.jaw, blubber-lips constantly open. the sightless eyes closed, and the head thrown far back on the shoulders, lying on the back. in fact a habit which he still retains, and which adds to the imbece character of the face. Until he was seven years of age, Tom was regarded on the plantation an idiot, not unjustly; for at the present time his judgment and reason rank but as those of a child four years old. He showed dog like affection for some members of the household,-a son of Mir. Divers espec ialy and keen, nervous sensitiveness to the slightest blame or praise from them-possessed, too, low animal irritability of temper, giving way to inarticulate yelps of passion when pro voked. That is all, so far /; we find no other outgrowth of intellect or soul from the boy
 just the same record as that of thousands of imbecile negro-children. Generations of heath endom and slavery have degraded the inherited hrains and temperaments of such children tol- erably clean of all traces of power or purity palsed the brain, brutalized the nature. Tom apparently fared no better than his fellows.
 It was not until 1857 that those phenomena, powers latent in the boy were suddenly devel- oped, which stamped him the anomaly he is to- day.
 One night, some time in the summer of that year, Mir. Divers family were wakened by the sound of music in the drawing-room noo only the simple airs, but the most difficult exercises usally played by his daughters, were repeated again ar,i again, the touch of the musician be- ing timd, but singularly true and delicate. Go ing down, they found Tom, who had been left asleep in the hall, seated at the piano in an ec- stasy of delight breaking out at the end of each successful fugue into shouts of laughter, kicking
 his heels and oapping his hands. This was tie
 first time he had touched the plano.
 Naturally Tom became nine days wonder on the plantation. He was brought in as an af- ter.dinuer's amusement visitors asked for him as the show of the place. There was hardly conception, however, in the minds of those who heard him, of how deep the cause for wonder lay The planters wives and daughters of the aeghborhood were not people who would be
 apt to comprehend music as science. or to
 use it as a language; they only saw in the little
 negro, therefore, a remarkable facility for re-
 beating the airs they drummed on their pianos,
 in different manner from theirs it IS true
 which hewilderad fbon, Tbov potiead too