tinued, "massa had many
sorrows when he lose your mother and his fortune, and I have my sorrows
when I was carried away by slaver people, and leave my husband and
piccaniny in Africa, and now your sorrows come. But we can pray to the
good God, and he lift us out of dem all."

Mammy had often told us of the cruel way in which she had been
kidnapped, and how her husband had escaped with her little boy; and
after she became a Christian (and a very sincere one she was), her great
grief arose from supposing that her child would be brought up as a
savage heathen in ignorance of the blessed truths of the gospel. My
sisters and I, as children, had often wept while she recounted her sad
history, but at the time I speak of, I myself was little able to
appreciate the deeper cause of her sorrow. I thought, of course, that
it was very natural she should grieve for the loss of her son, but I did
not understand that it arose on account of her anxiety for his soul's
salvation.

"I pray day and night," I heard her once tell Jane, "dat my piccaniny
learn to know Christ, and I sure God hear my prayers. How He bring it
about I cannot tell."

We and Mammy followed our father to the grave, and were then compelled
to quit the house, leaving everything behind us, with the exception of
my sisters' wardrobes and a few ornaments, which they claimed as their
property. Mammy did her best to cheer us. She had taken, unknown to my
sisters, some humble, though clean, lodgings in the outskirts of the
town, and to these she had carried whatever we were allowed to remove.

"See, Massa Harry," she said, showing me an old leathern purse full of
gold. "We no want food for long time to come, and before then God find
us friends and show us what to do."

My sisters possessed various talents, and they at once determined to
employ them to the best advantage. Jane and Mary drew beautifully, and
were adepts in all sorts of fancy needle-work. Emily, though young, had
written one or two pretty tales, and we were sure that she was destined
to be an authoress. Mammy, therefore, entreated them not to separate,
assuring them that her only pleasure on earth would be to labour and
assist in protecting them. Had they had no other motive, for her sake
alone, they would have been anxious to follow her advice.

I was the only one of the family who felt unable to do anything for
myself. I wrote too bad a hand to allow me any hopes of obtaining a
situation in