stice and
weight of slavery bore more heavily upon her than upon me. She did not
dare to talk it over with anyone for fear that they would sell her
further down the river, so I was her only confidant. Mother was always
planning and getting ready to go, and while the fire was burning
brightly, it but needed a little more provocation to add to the
flames.

CHAPTER III.

Mrs. Cox was always very severe and exacting with my mother, and one
occasion, when something did not suit her, she turned on mother like a
fury, and declared, "I am just tired out with the 'white airs' you put
on, and if you don't behave differently, I will make Mr. Cox sell you
down the river at once."

Although mother turned grey with fear, she presented a bold front and
retorted that "she didn't care, she was tired of that place, and
didn't like to live there, nohow." This so infuriated Mr. Cox that he
cried, "How dare a negro say what she liked or what she did not like;
and he would show her what he should do."

So, on the day following, he took my mother to an auction-room on Main
Street and sold her to the highest bidder, for five hundred and fifty
dollars. Oh! God! the pity of it! "In the home of the brave and the
land of the free," in the sight of the stars and stripes--that symbol
of freedom--sold away from her child, to satisfy the anger of a
peevish mistress!

My mother returned to the house to get her few belongings, and
straining me to her breast, begged me to be a good girl, that she was
going to run away, and would buy me as soon as she could. With all the
inborn faith of a child, I believed it most fondly, and when I heard
that she had actually made her escape, three weeks after, my heart
gave an exultant throb and cried, "God is good!"

A large reward was offered, the bloodhounds (curse them and curse
their masters) were set loose on her trail. In the day time she hid in
caves and the surrounding woods, and in the night time, guided by the
wondrous North Star, that blessed lodestone of a slave people, my
mother finally reached Chicago, where she was arrested by the
negro-catchers. At this time the Fugitive Slave Law was in full
operation, and it was against the law of the whole country to aid and
protect an escaped slave; not even a drink of water, for the love of
the Master, might be given, and those who dared to do it (and there
were many such brave hearts, thank God!) placed their lives in danger.

The presence of blo