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Show -- Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl. my children uow that we ·were free ! ~fy rclat~vc ·had been foiled in all their efforts, but God had ra1 ·cd 1110 a friend a1non rr strangers, ·who had Lc towed on 1ne up o . d I I . the precious, long-de ·ired boon. ~r1cn . t 1s a cmu- 1110n word~ often lightly used. L1kc other good and beautiful things, it may be tarnished by careless hand-l ino· . but when I speak of Mrs. Bruce as 1ny friend, b ' tho \Vord is sacred. l\fy grandn1other lived to rejoice in1ny frccdo1n ; but not long after, a letter ca1no with a black se~l. She had gone " where the ·wicked cease fro1n troubling, and the ·weary arc at res t. " Tiu1c passed on, and a paper ca1no to n1e fro1n the south, contaiuing an obituary notice of 1ny uncle Phillip. It ·was tho only case I over know of sucl.1 an honor conferred upon a colored person. It ·was wntten by one of his friends, and contained thcs~ words: " N O\V that death has lai<l him lo\v, they calllum a good man and a u ·oful citizen ; but \vhat arc eulogies to the black n1an, ·when tho \Vorld has faded fro1n his vision '? It does not require n1an's praise to obtain rest in God's kinrrdom." So they called a colored n1an a citizen ! Strb ange ·words to be uttered in that. rcgw• n '. Reader, my story ends \vith frcedon1 ; not in the usual way, \vith marriage. I and 1ny children arc now free ! 'V e arc as free from the po\ver of slaveholders as arc the white people of the north; and though that, according to n1y ideas, is not saying a great deal, it is a vast in1provcn1ent in m.y condition. The drea1n ~f my life is not yet realized. I do not sit with my clul· drcn in a home of mv O\Vn. I still long for a hearthstone of n1y own, ho~vever lnunLle. I wish it for my . 1 Free at LaO:. children's sake far more than for my own. But nod so orders cirm.unstanccs as to keep me with my friend Mrs. Bruce. Love, duty, gratitude, also bind 1ne to her side. It is a pri vilcge to serve her who pi tic 111y oppressed people, and who has bestowed the inesti1uable boon of frccdo1n on me and my children. It has been painful to 1nc, in many ·ways, to recall the dreary years I passed in bondage. I would gladly forget thctn if I could. Y ct the retrospection is not altogether without solace; for with those gloou1y recollections come tender 1ncmories of 1ny good old grandmother, like light, fleecy clouds floating orcr a dark and troubled sea. .. , |
