I made all my arrangements to go on board as soon as it was dusk.  The intervening time I resolved to spend with my son.  I had not spoken to him for seven years, though I had been under the same roof, and seen him every day, when I was well enough to sit at the loophole.  I did not dare to venture beyond the storeroom; so they brought him there, and locked us up together, in a place concealed from the piazza door.  It was an agitating interview for both of us.  After we had talked and wept together for a little while, he said, “Mother, I’m glad you’re going away.  I wish I could go with you.  I knew you was here; and I have been so afraid they would come and catch you!” I was greatly surprised, and asked him how he had found it out.

He replied, “I was standing under the eaves, one day, before Ellen went away, and I heard somebody cough up over the wood shed.  I don’t know what made me think it was you, but I did think so.  I missed Ellen, the night before she went away; and grandmother brought her back into the room in the night; and I thought maybe she’d been to see you, before she went, for I heard grandmother whisper to her, ’Now go to sleep; and remember never to tell.’”

I asked him if he ever mentioned his suspicions to his sister.  He said he never did; but after he heard the cough, if he saw her playing with other children on that side of the house, he always tried to coax her round to the other side, for fear they would hear me cough, too.  He said he had kept a close lookout for Dr. Flint, and if he saw him speak to a constable, or a patrol, he always told grandmother.  I now recollected that I had seen him manifest uneasiness, when people were on that side of the house, and I had at the time been puzzled to conjecture a motive for his actions.  Such prudence may seem extraordinary in a boy of twelve years, but slaves, being surrounded by mysteries, deceptions, and dangers, early learn to be suspicious and watchful, and prematurely cautious and cunning.  He had never asked a question of grandmother, or uncle Phillip, and I had often heard him chime in with other children, when they spoke of my being at the north.

I told him I was now really going to the Free States, and if he was a good, honest boy, and a loving child to his dear old grandmother, the Lord would bless him, and bring him to me, and we and Ellen would live together.  He began to tell me that grandmother had not eaten any thing all day.  While he was speaking, the door was unlocked, and she came in with a small bag of money, which she wanted me to take.  I begged her to keep a part of it, at least, to pay for Benny’s being sent to the north; but she insisted, while her tears were falling fast, that I should take the whole.  “You may be sick among strangers,” she said, “and they would send you to the poorhouse to die.”  Ah, that good grandmother!