Still I was not stripped of all.  I still had my good grandmother, and my affectionate brother.  When he put his arms round my neck, and looked into my eyes, as if to read there the troubles I dared not tell, I felt that I still had something to love.  But even that pleasant emotion was chilled by the reflection that he might be torn from me at any moment, by some sudden freak of my master.  If he had known how we loved each other, I think he would have exulted in separating us.  We often planned together how we could get to the north.  But, as William remarked, such things are easier said than done.  My movements were very closely watched, and we had no means of getting any money to defray our expenses.  As for grandmother, she was strongly opposed to her children’s undertaking any such project.  She had not forgotten poor Benjamin’s sufferings, and she was afraid that if another child tried to escape, he would have a similar or a worse fate.  To me, nothing seemed more dreadful than my present life.  I said to myself, “William must be free.  He shall go to the north, and I will follow him.”  Many a slave sister has formed the same plans.

VIII.  What Slaves Are Taught To Think Of The North.

Slaveholders pride themselves upon being honorable men; but if you were to hear the enormous lies they tell their slaves, you would have small respect for their veracity.  I have spoken plain English.  Pardon me.  I cannot use a milder term.  When they visit the north, and return home, they tell their slaves of the runaways they have seen, and describe them to be in the most deplorable condition.  A slaveholder once told me that he had seen a runaway friend of mine in New York, and that she besought him to take her back to her master, for she was literally dying of starvation; that many days she had only one cold potato to eat, and at other times could get nothing at all.  He said he refused to take her, because he knew her master would not thank him for bringing such a miserable wretch to his house.  He ended by saying to me, “This is the punishment she brought on herself for running away from a kind master.”

This whole story was false.  I afterwards staid with that friend in New York, and found her in comfortable circumstances.  She had never thought of such a thing as wishing to go back to slavery.  Many of the slaves believe such stories, and think it is not worth while to exchange slavery for such a hard kind of freedom.  It is difficult to persuade such that freedom could make them useful men, and enable them to protect their wives and children.  If those heathen in our Christian land had as much teaching as some Hindoos, they would think otherwise.  They would know that liberty is more valuable than life.  They would begin to understand their own capabilities, and exert themselves to become men and women.