The graveyard was in the woods, and twilight was coming on.  Nothing broke the death-like stillness except the occasional twitter of a bird.  My spirit was overawed by the solemnity of the scene.  For more than ten years I had frequented this spot, but never had it seemed to me so sacred as now.  A black stump, at the head of my mother’s grave, was all that remained of a tree my father had planted.  His grave was marked by a small wooden board, bearing his name, the letters of which were nearly obliterated.  I knelt down and kissed them, and poured forth a prayer to God for guidance and support in the perilous step I was about to take.  As I passed the wreck of the old meeting house, where, before Nat Turner’s time, the slaves had been allowed to meet for worship, I seemed to hear my father’s voice come from it, bidding me not to tarry till I reached freedom or the grave.  I rushed on with renovated hopes.  My trust in God had been strengthened by that prayer among the graves.

My plan was to conceal myself at the house of a friend, and remain there a few weeks till the search was over.  My hope was that the doctor would get discouraged, and, for fear of losing my value, and also of subsequently finding my children among the missing, he would consent to sell us; and I knew somebody would buy us.  I had done all in my power to make my children comfortable during the time I expected to be separated from them.  I was packing my things, when grandmother came into the room, and asked what I was doing.  “I am putting my things in order,” I replied.  I tried to look and speak cheerfully; but her watchful eye detected something beneath the surface.  She drew me towards her, and asked me to sit down.  She looked earnestly at me, and said, “Linda, do you want to kill your old grandmother?  Do you mean to leave your little, helpless children?  I am old now, and cannot do for your babies as I once did for you.”

I replied, that if I went away, perhaps their father would be able to secure their freedom.

“Ah, my child,” said she, “don’t trust too much to him.  Stand by your own children, and suffer with them till death.  Nobody respects a mother who forsakes her children; and if you leave them, you will never have a happy moment.  If you go, you will make me miserable the short time I have to live.  You would be taken and brought back, and your sufferings would be dreadful.  Remember poor Benjamin.  Do give it up, Linda.  Try to bear a little longer.  Things may turn out better than we expect.”

My courage failed me, in view of the sorrow I should bring on that faithful, loving old heart.  I promised that I would try longer, and that I would take nothing out of her house without her knowledge.

Whenever the children climbed on my knee, or laid their heads on my lap, she would say, “Poor little souls! what would you do without a mother?  She don’t love you as I do.”  And she would hug them to her own bosom, as if to reproach me for my want of affection; but she knew all the while that I loved them better than my life.  I slept with her that night, and it was the last time.  The memory of it haunted me for many a year.