For years, my master had done his utmost to pollute my mind with foul images, and to destroy the pure principles inculcated by my grandmother, and the good mistress of my childhood.
When I was nearly twelve years old, my kind mistress sickened and died.
If a slave is unwilling to go with his new master, he is whipped, or locked up in jail, until he consents to go, and promises not to run away during the year.
Always it gave me a pang that my children had no lawful claim to a name.
The beautiful spring came; and when Nature resumes her loveliness, the human soul is apt to revive also.
I WAS born a slave; but I never knew it till six years of happy childhood had passed away.
