The Wheeling daily intelligencer. [volume] (Wheeling, W. Va.) 1865-1903, 1865-08-28
BLIND TOM.
From the Atlantic Monthly for JuIv-by n
lady at that time resident OF lYheellngI
p Ii!Inly g germ N 9 !MIlherel tlower,

4H
Only germ in withered flower,
Ihat the min Will bring outs sometime.
Sometime in the year 1850, a tobacco
planter in Southern Georgia PERRY II.
Oliver by nancy bought n likely negro
woman with some other field hands.
She was stout, tough mlscIed, willing,
promised to be a remunerative servants;
her baby, however, a boy a few months
old, was only thrown in as a mike
weight to the bargain, or rather because
Mr.. Oliver would not consent to sepa-
rate mother and child. Charity only
could have induced hinlto take the MIC
nninny, in fact, for he was but n lump
of blnck flesh, born blind, and with the
vacant grin of idiocy, they thought, aIt
ready Stamped upon his tnce IhptHo
slaves were purchased, j believe, from
a trader: it has been impossible, there
fore, for me. to ascertain where Tom
was born, orwhen. Georgia field hands
are not as accurate as JeWs1in preserV-
ing their genealogy; they do not antici-
patio n Messiah. "A white innn. Won
know, has that hope uncOnscionsly
Intent In him, that ne Is, ,orshaIf give birth
to, the greQtmanl of his race, a helper, a
proHider for the worlds hunger: SO he
grows jealous with his blood; tho dead
grandfather may hive 1presaged the
possible son; besides, it is n debt he
owes to this coming Saul to tell him
whence; he came. Tiereare some class
es; free and slave, out of whom society
has crushed this hope: they have no
clani no family names among them,
therefore. This idiot-boy, chosen by
God to be anointed with the holy
chrism, is only "Tom, ,''-'sBlind Tom. -
they call him in all 1.-the Southern States.
with a kind cadence alTHaSs. bein8
proud and fond of him; and yet-iiotli-
ing but Tom That is pitifil. Just
mushroom-erowth th = unkinned, unex-
pected, not hoped for, for generations.
owning no name to purify and honor
and give away when he is dead. TIis
mother, at work to-day on the Oliver
plantations, can anneyercompfellen why
her hoy is famous; this gift of God to
him means nothing to her. Nothing to
him, either, which is saddest of all; he
is upconscfous 5weBIs his crown as an
idiot might, Whose fault is, that Deep
er than slavery the evil lies.
Mr.. Oliver did his duty wellsto the
boy, being dn observant and thorough
" kind master. The tplInfa Hon was
large, heartsome, ,faeed thelsnn, !sJyarm-
ed with little black urchins, with plen-i
ty to eat, and nothing to- doy5 10. 40
All that Tom required, as he fattened'
out of baby into bOyhood, was room in
which to be warm, on tho truss patch,
or by the Kitchen fires, to be stupid,
tlabby, sleePy-kicked and petted hl-
ternatelY by the other hands, Hehad
"a habit of crawling up on the porehes
and yerandas of the mansion and sotat4
ting there in the sun, waiting for a kind.
word or touch from those who went in
and ont. He seldom failed to receive
1t, SOuthefneFs know nothing OF, the
physical shiyer of aversion with " hi0h,
even the Aboli litionists of the North
touch the negro; SO Tom, through his
pet in the faInily, a play ytnate, occasion-
ally, of Mr.. divers own infant child
rem. The boy, creeping about day amer
day in tho hot light, was as repugnant
nm object us the aiEarf nithe neighborf
ing swamp and promised 10 be OF as
little use to his master. He was of the
lowest negro typo, from which only
field hands can be made-coal black,
with protruding heels, the ape5jaw,
blubbef lips constantly open, the sight
less eyes closed, and the head 9Hr0wn'
far back on the shoulders, lying on the
back, in fact, q habit which he still re-
tains, and which adds to the imbecile
character of the face. Until he, was
seven years of age, Tom was regarded
on the plantation as anidiot, not un-
ljustlyS for at the present time his jIidg-
men6 and reason rank but as. those of a
child four years old. He Showed a dog
/ Hike affection for some members ofsthe
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. oLitN1rtsO sOItYefTS eSpe-
ci1lly-and a,keen, nervous sensitive
ness to the slightest blame or praise
from thetn-po ossessed, too, a. low aIli-
NAL irritability ofitenlperi giving Vny
! 10 inartioulate yelps Of passion when
provoked. That IS all, 50 far: we find
no other oTitgrowth of int elect or soul
fronl the boy; just the same record, as
that of thousands, of imbecile negro
Echfldren. Generations of heathendOm
Eand slavery have dredged the inherited
brains and temperaments of such child-
rem tOlerably clean of all traces of pow
er or purify-pa -palsied the brain, bru=
taIized the nature. Tom apparently
fared no better than his fellows.
{SsIt was not until 1851 that those phe=
nomenaF powers latent IN the boy We're
L tsuddenly developed, which stamped
him the anomaly he is to-day.
One night, sometime in the summer
/ of that year, Mr.. divers family were