Adam Arator to the Editor of the Liberator

ADAM ARATOR TO THE EDITOR OF THE LIBERATOR.

Well, sir, that night after the squire was at our house, I say awake a good hour, which is what a farmer don't often do, for sleep comes as easy and soft upon us as the night dews upon our tender plants, and is as necessary to us, and we are all wilted up in the morning if we don't get it, just as our plants would be without the dews. I turned the whole matter over in my mind as thoroughly as my new fashioned plough does my land. Why here's my farm, thought I, brings me in so much a year by selling the produce, and this is what I count on for my profits. Supposing now I could not sell any of it, because people thought I managed my farm so that I did not come by my stuff honestly. Supposing it was my neighbors only, who knew always, that thought so, and that I could sell my produce by trading farther off. Still I should like to have a good name among my neighbors, and a handy market for my stuff, and should set to thinking how I could manage my farm so as to bring this about, and not have my neighbors so shy of trading with me. Now this is what I should do, even if I knew all the time I'd been acting like a thief, which it's a tough matter for me to suppose of myself. But supposing I'd been under a delusion like as some people think the slaveholders are, and had not known justly that I was acting like a dishonest man; I think it would rouse me up pretty quick, to hear there was a set of men, if there were ever so few of them, who thought I was not honest enough to be traded with; and I guess my eyes would soon be as clear as theirs. So who knows but what our giving up using the slave-raised things would set some of the slaveholders upon looking into their ways and finding out that they were wrong, if they saw it was not done out of spite, but for honesty's sake; for it's no great matter to reckon upon, that there are some as honest men as I among them. If there are not, it shows slavery to be a worse canker worm than I thought it, eating away the very life of the soul. Then, sir, I turned it another way.—Supposing that Tim Bennet should come along tomorrow with a good yoke of oxen (which was what I just then happened to be in want of.) Now Tim is the cattle cheat of the county, though he's so sly, the law can't get hold of him. Cheating in cattle is his trade, just as cheating the poor slaves out of their earnings is the slaveholder's trade. Supposing I knew he'd cheated a poor widow out of this very pair of oxen. Shall I trade with him, and so share the profits of his cheating, and encourage him to do the same thing again? If I do, it is not for me to call him cheat. No, Tim, I shall go without the oxen if I can't get any that have been honestly come by. You need not tell me other folks will buy if I don't,—more shame for them,—but that's no reason I should dabble in any such dirty work.

Now, sir, this is just the way the free states stand with the slaveholders, buying up their crops, and doing all we can to make their slaveholding profitable to them. Come, John, said I the next day, get the last census and let us figure it out, and see how many of us there are, who are pretending to think slavery's wrong, and yet doing our best to keep it up. So, sir; we began at Maine, and went through all the free states, and counted up all the people, and found there was rising seven millions. Now, John, said I, make them that don't know a squash from a pumpkin believe that seven million people's eating and wearing slave-raised produce has nothing to do with keeping up slavery. 'Clear then,' said John, 'as a demonstration in Euclid, that each one that uses slave productions does his seven millionth part; and little though it may be,' said he, jumping up, 'if it was but a trillionth part, father, I'd have nothing to do with such deviltry.'

A true word to use, John, said I, though it may sound rather hard to some folks; but slaveholding is as much deviltry as any thing on this earth can be, and not a cent of my money goes to keep it up any longer, let us live how we may.

Oh, my dear husband, said my wife, when we feel the want of any of the things we have been used to, let us remember how much harder it is for the poor slaves never to have any of them, though it was their own hard labor which raised them, than it is for us who have so many comforts left.

This was no argument to be sure, sir, but its woman's way to talk, and seems pretty like.

'Well, wife, you're a kind soul to make it all so easy, but it will make a great stir among so many hired men as we've got about us, that won't feel our scruples, and won't like to go without some of the good things. How shall we do without molasses for our beer?' You must know, sir, I never have any kind of spirit drank by my men, nor cider neither, which is next door for headiness, but always gave them a weak sort of beer, pretty strong of the molasses as I reckon that's wholesome. So here was a quandary to be in, and just coming on haying time too. But Ned Grew thought about it as soon as I did, indeed sooner, for ever since that time my Nancy made such a fool of me at the dinner table, he's left off drinking beer and takes milk and water for his drink, and he named it to the men all about my notions, and recommended the milk and water to them. So they all fell in with it, knowing it was not stinginess in me, and soon got to like it just as well as the beer, and said it was more supporting; and never did I see a set of men swing the scythe smarter. They that could not bear the milk, never grumbled, but contented themselves with water; and it soon got to be a standing joke among them that Adam's ale was as good any day as ever Adam's beer was. You remember, sir, that my name's Adam, for I did not end off my letter to you just with two or three big letters as if I wanted to teach you your alphabet. No, no, none of your A.A's or B.B's for a man that never did any thing to make him ashamed of his own name. But to go straight on, wife managed so well that we seemed to get along as comfortable as ever as to eatables. To be sure, the little ones wished for a pie now and then, which I hope they'll soon have, for my neighbor Jones talks of tapping his young maples this year, and then we shall be as well off for sweetening as ever, for he's as honest a man as any body would wish to trade with. My piece of flax too has turned to very good account, for my wife and the girls have set to spinning and weaving again as brisk as ever, which they have not done much lately, since cotton's been so cheap; so that all they seem to care for now is something a little smart for outside wear; and as the accounts in your paper about cotton have seemed to be very encouraging, I hope to see my folks dressed as smart as ever before long. A proud day it would be to wife if she could get a gown, made from cotton raised by free labor in this country. If you should hear of any such cotton to be sold in Boston, do just put it into your paper, for I believe wife would go to the city for it, herself, which she has not done these ten years. But if it is not to be got, she'll content herself without it, and there is not one of my folks, that would not scorn to buy slave-raised things which they would count the same as stealing. I suppose the down shore people must be put to worse straights than we are, for I reckon there are no set of people that have the means of living comfortable within themselves more than a New-England farmer and his family. And seeing we are not in the way of doing any great things for the slaves, I think it would be a good notion for all my brother farmers to see what we can do by setting the example of being among the first to quit sharing in the fruits of oppression. And it's mighty comfortable to look round on a rising family, and know that they are all innocent of any share in this great sin of the nation. Who knows what the New-England farmers might do if they'd set about it? for we are not such nobodys as the city folks think. Well, sir, I've told my long story, and I wish you success in all your doings, and I don't doubt you'll have a good harvest. Never be sparing of your seed; if the first sowing don't spring, cast in more, and you may get something from the most unpromising. A lucky shower, or lucky sunshine, may give a start to seed in a spot where you looked for nothing. We call it lucky, sir, but I reckon you are not one who forgets who it is that sends the rain and the sunshine; and if we do our part to pick out good seed, never fear that any of them will be lost, if any good is to come from their sprouting. I keep getting into this figuring way, but I guess you'll understand, for it seems to start up to my mind as quick as white clover does on a piece of new cleared land; they're both natural to the soil I reckon. I got my college lad to look over my letter and see if he could trim it up a little. But he says 'no further, translating would spoil it.' I suppose John thinks of translating as I do of transplanting, that it requires a pretty nice hand to do it, or else the plant is spoiled. So I send it without any trimming.

ADAM ARATOR.