Countless were the nights that I sat late at the little loophole scarcely large enough to give me a glimpse of one twinkling star.  There, heard the patrols and slave-hunters conferring together about the capture of runaways, well knowing how rejoiced they would be to catch me.

Season after season, year after year, I peeped at my children’s faces, and heard their sweet voices, with a heart yearning all the while to say, “Your mother is here.”  Sometimes it appeared to me as if ages had rolled away since I entered upon that gloomy, monotonous existence.  At times, I was stupefied and listless; at other times I became very impatient to know when these dark years would end, and I should again be allowed to feel the sunshine, and breathe the pure air.

After Ellen left us, this feeling increased.  Mr. Sands had agreed that Benny might go to the north whenever his uncle Phillip could go with him; and I was anxious to be there also, to watch over my children, and protect them so far as I was able.  Moreover, I was likely to be drowned out of my den, if I remained much longer; for the slight roof was getting badly out of repair, and uncle Phillip was afraid to remove the shingles, lest some one should get a glimpse of me.  When storms occurred in the night, they spread mats and bits of carpet, which in the morning appeared to have been laid out to dry; but to cover the roof in the daytime might have attracted attention.  Consequently, my clothes and bedding were often drenched; a process by which the pains and aches in my cramped and stiffened limbs were greatly increased.  I revolved various plans of escape in my mind, which I sometimes imparted to my grandmother, when she came to whisper with me at the trap-door.  The kind-hearted old woman had an intense sympathy for runaways.  She had known too much of the cruelties inflicted on those who were captured.  Her memory always flew back at once to the sufferings of her bright and handsome son, Benjamin, the youngest and dearest of her flock.  So, whenever I alluded to the subject, she would groan out, “O, don’t think of it, child.  You’ll break my heart.”  I had no good old aunt Nancy now to encourage me; but my brother William and my children were continually beckoning me to the north.

And now I must go back a few months in my story.  I have stated that the first of January was the time for selling slaves, or leasing them out to new masters.  If time were counted by heart-throbs, the poor slaves might reckon years of suffering during that festival so joyous to the free.  On the New Year’s day preceding my aunt’s death, one of my friends, named Fanny, was to be sold at auction, to pay her master’s debts.  My thoughts were with her during all the day, and at night I anxiously inquired what had been her fate.  I was told that she had been sold to one master, and her four little girls to another master, far distant; that she had escaped from her purchaser, and was not to be found.