My grandmother continued to send him fresh changes of clothes.  The old ones were burned up.  The last night we saw him in jail his mother still begged him to send for his master, and beg his pardon.  Neither persuasion nor argument could turn him from his purpose.  He calmly answered, “I am waiting his time.”

Those chains were mournful to hear.

Another three months passed, and Benjamin left his prison walls.  We that loved him waited to bid him a long and last farewell.  A slave trader had bought him.  You remember, I told you what price he brought when ten years of age.  Now he was more than twenty years old, and sold for three hundred dollars.  The master had been blind to his own interest.  Long confinement had made his face too pale, his form too thin; moreover, the trader had heard something of his character, and it did not strike him as suitable for a slave.  He said he would give any price if the handsome lad was a girl.  We thanked God that he was not.

Could you have seen that mother clinging to her child, when they fastened the irons upon his wrists; could you have heard her heart-rending groans, and seen her bloodshot eyes wander wildly from face to face, vainly pleading for mercy; could you have witnessed that scene as I saw it, you would exclaim, Slavery is damnable!  Benjamin, her youngest, her pet, was forever gone!  She could not realize it.  She had had an interview with the trader for the purpose of ascertaining if Benjamin could be purchased.  She was told it was impossible, as he had given bonds not to sell him till he was out of the state.  He promised that he would not sell him till he reached New Orleans.

With a strong arm and unvaried trust, my grandmother began her work of love.  Benjamin must be free.  If she succeeded, she knew they would still be separated; but the sacrifice was not too great.  Day and night she labored.  The trader’s price would treble that he gave; but she was not discouraged.

She employed a lawyer to write to a gentleman, whom she knew, in New Orleans.  She begged him to interest himself for Benjamin, and he willingly favored her request.  When he saw Benjamin, and stated his business, he thanked him; but said he preferred to wait a while before making the trader an offer.  He knew he had tried to obtain a high price for him, and had invariably failed.  This encouraged him to make another effort for freedom.  So one morning, long before day, Benjamin was missing.  He was riding over the blue billows, bound for Baltimore.

For once his white face did him a kindly service.  They had no suspicion that it belonged to a slave; otherwise, the law would have been followed out to the letter, and the thing rendered back to slavery.  The brightest skies are often overshadowed by the darkest clouds.  Benjamin was taken sick, and compelled to remain in Baltimore three weeks.  His strength was slow in returning; and his desire to continue his journey seemed to retard his recovery.  How could he get strength without air and exercise?  He resolved to venture on a short walk.  A by-street was selected, where he thought himself secure of not being met by any one that knew him; but a voice called out, “Halloo, Ben, my boy! what are you doing here!”