He then told me of the advice he had received, and the plans he had laid.  I asked if he had money enough to take him to Canada. “’Pend upon it, I hab,” he replied.  “I tuk car fur dat.  I’d bin workin all my days fur dem cussed whites, an got no pay but kicks and cuffs.  So I tought dis nigger had a right to money nuff to bring him to de Free States.  Massa Henry he lib till ebery body vish him dead; an ven he did die, I knowed de debbil would hab him, an vouldn’t vant him to bring his money ’long too.  So I tuk some of his bills, and put ’em in de pocket of his ole trousers.  An ven he was buried, dis nigger ask fur dem ole trousers, an dey gub ’em to me.”  With a low, chuckling laugh, he added, “You see I didn’t steal it; dey gub it to me.  I tell you, I had mighty hard time to keep de speculator from findin it; but he didn’t git it.”

This is a fair specimen of how the moral sense is educated by slavery.  When a man has his wages stolen from him, year after year, and the laws sanction and enforce the theft, how can he be expected to have more regard to honesty than has the man who robs him?  I have become somewhat enlightened, but I confess that I agree with poor, ignorant, much-abused Luke, in thinking he had a right to that money, as a portion of his unpaid wages.  He went to Canada forthwith, and I have not since heard from him.

All that winter I lived in a state of anxiety.  When I took the children out to breathe the air, I closely observed the countenances of all I met.  I dreaded the approach of summer, when snakes and slaveholders make their appearance.  I was, in fact, a slave in New York, as subject to slave laws as I had been in a Slave State.  Strange incongruity in a State called free!

Spring returned, and I received warning from the south that Dr. Flint knew of my return to my old place, and was making preparations to have me caught.  I learned afterwards that my dress, and that of Mrs. Bruce’s children, had been described to him by some of the Northern tools, which slaveholders employ for their base purposes, and then indulge in sneers at their cupidity and mean servility.

I immediately informed Mrs. Bruce of my danger, and she took prompt measures for my safety.  My place as nurse could not be supplied immediately, and this generous, sympathizing lady proposed that I should carry her baby away.  It was a comfort to me to have the child with me; for the heart is reluctant to be torn away from every object it loves.  But how few mothers would have consented to have one of their own babes become a fugitive, for the sake of a poor, hunted nurse, on whom the legislators of the country had let loose the bloodhounds!  When I spoke of the sacrifice she was making, in depriving herself of her dear baby, she replied, “It is better for you to have baby with you, Linda; for if they get on your track, they will be obliged to bring the child to me; and then, if there is a possibility of saving you, you shall be saved.”