The dollar weekly bulletin. [volume] (Maysville, Ky.) 1862-1864, 1863-10-29
From All the Year Round.
BLIND BLACK TOM.

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with some other field hands. She was
stout, tough -muscled. willing, promised to
be remunerative servant; her baby. how
ever, boy a few months old, was only
thrown in as make-weisht to the bargain,
or rather because Mr.. Oliver would not con-
ssnt to separate mother and child. Charity
only could have induced him to take the
picaninny, in fact, for he was but lump of
black flesh born blind, and with the vacant
grin of idiocy, they thought. already stamp
ed on his face. The two slaves were pur-
chased. believe. FROM 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 pre-
serving their genealogy; they do not antci-
pate Messiah. A white man, you know
has that vague hope unconsciously latent in
him that he is, or shall give birth to the
great man of his race, helper, provid er for
the worlds hunger; so he grows jealous with
his blood; the dead grandfather may have
presaged the possible SOD; besides, it is a
debt he owes to this coming Saul to tell him
whence he came. There are some classes.
free and slave, out of whom society has
crushed this hope; they have no clan. no
family names among them, therefore. This
idiot boy, chosen by God to be auointed
with the holy chrism. is only "Tom"-
"Blind Tom," they call him in all the South
ern States. with kind cadence always, be-
ing proud and fond of him, and yet
nothing but Toni That is pitieul Just
mushroom growth-unkinned, unexpected,
not hoped for, for generations, owning no
name to purify and honor and give away
when he is dead. His mother, az work to-
day in the Oliver plantations, can never
comprehend why her boy is famous; this
gift of God to him means nothing to her
80 =. i q
all; he is unconscious, wears his crown as an
idiot might. Whose fault is that? Deeper
than slavery the evil lies.
Mr.. Oliver did his duty we'll to the boy,
being an obserVant and kind master. The
plantation was large, heartsome, faced the
sun. swarmed with little black urchins, with
plenty to eat. and nothing to do.
! All that Tom required, as he fattened out
of baby into boyhood, was room in which to
be warm, on the grass patch, or by the
kitchen fires, to be stupid, labby, sleepy
kicked and petted alternately by the other
hands. He had habit of crawling up on
the porches and verandahs of the mansion.
aud squatting there in the sun. waiting for
kind word or touch fronI those who went
in and out. He seldom failed to receive it.
Southerners know nothing of the physical
shver of aversion with which even soma
Abolitionists of the North touch the negro:
so Tom. through his very hel lplessness, came
to be a sort of pet in the family, playmate,
! occasionally, Of Mr.. divers own infant
children. The boy, creeping about day after
day in the hot light, was as repugnaut an
object as the lizards in the neighboring
swamp, and promised to be of as little use
to his master. He was of the lowest negro
type, from which only feld-hands can be
m made-coal-black. with protrIdins heels,
the ape jaw, blubber-lips. constantly open,
the sightless eyes closed, aud the head
thrown far back on the shoulders, lying on
the back, in fact, habit which he still re-
ta!ns, and which adds to the imbecile char
acter of the face. Until he was seven years
of age, Tom was regarded on the plantation
ton as an idiot. not unjustly; for at the pres
ent time his judgment and reason rank but
as that of child four years old. He show
ed q doglike affection for some members oil
the household-a son OF Mr.. Oliver especial.
ly-and a 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 provoked 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 heathendon and slavery
peraments of such children tolerably clean
of all traces of power or purty-palsied the
brain. brutalized the nature. Tom appar-
antIy Jared no better than his fellows.
1t was not until 1857 that phenomenal
powers latent in the bov we're suddenly de-
veloped, which stamped him tho anomaly
he is to-day.
One night, sometime in the summer of
that year, Mr.. divers family were waken-
ed by the sound of music In the drawing
room-not only the simple airs, but the
most difficult exercises usually played by
his daughters were repeated again and
again, the touch Of the musician being
timid, but sngularly true and delicate.
Going down, they found Tom, who had
been left asleep il the hall. seated at the
piano. in an ecstacy of delight, breaking
out at the end Of each successful fugue into
shouts of laughter, kicking his heels and
clapping his hands. This was the first time
he had touche ed the piano. Naturally, Tom
became a nine days wonder on the planta-
tion. He was brought in as an after-din-
Der's amusement; visitors asked for him as
the show Of the place. There was hardly
a realization, however, in the minds of those
who heard him of how deep the cause for
wonder lay. The planters wives and
daughters of the neighberhood were not peo-
pie who would be apt to comprehend music
as a science, or use it as language; they only
saw in the little negro, therefore, remark =
able facility for repeating the airs they
drummed on their pisnos--in different
manner from theirs, it is true-which be
wildered them. They noticed, too. that
however the child's fingers fell on the keys,
cadeuces followed, broken, wandering, yet
of startling beauty aud pathos. The house.
servants, looking in through the open doors
at the little black figure perched up before
the instrume ept, while unknown wild bar