Finding that his arguments failed to convince my uncle, the doctor “let the cat out of the bag,” by saying that he had written to the mayor of Boston, to ascertain whether there was a person of my description at the street and number from which my letter was dated.  He had omitted this date in the letter he had made up to read to my grandmother.  If I had dated from New York, the old man would probably have made another journey to that city.  But even in that dark region, where knowledge is so carefully excluded from the slave, I had heard enough about Massachusetts to come to the conclusion that slaveholders did not consider it a comfortable place to go in search of a runaway.  That was before the Fugitive Slave Law was passed; before Massachusetts had consented to become a “nigger hunter” for the south.

My grandmother, who had become skittish by seeing her family always in danger, came to me with a very distressed countenance, and said, “What will you do if the mayor of Boston sends him word that you haven’t been there?  Then he will suspect the letter was a trick; and maybe he’ll find out something about it, and we shall all get into trouble.  O Linda, I wish you had never sent the letters.”

“Don’t worry yourself, Grandmother,” said I.  “The mayor of Boston won’t trouble himself to hunt niggers for Dr. Flint.  The letters will do good in the end.  I shall get out of this dark hole some time or other.”

“I hope you will, child,” replied the good, patient old friend.  “You have been here a long time; almost five years; but whenever you do go, it will break your old grandmother’s heart.  I should be expecting every day to hear that you were brought back in irons and put in jail.  God help you, poor child!  Let us be thankful that some time or other we shall go ’where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest.’” My heart responded, Amen.

The fact that Dr. Flint had written to the mayor of Boston convinced me that he believed my letter to be genuine, and of course that he had no suspicion of my being any where in the vicinity.  It was a great object to keep up this delusion, for it made me and my friends feel less anxious, and it would be very convenient whenever there was a chance to escape.  I resolved, therefore, to continue to write letters from the north from time to time.

Two or three weeks passed, and as no news came from the mayor of Boston, grandmother began to listen to my entreaty to be allowed to leave my cell, sometimes, and exercise my limbs to prevent my becoming a cripple.  I was allowed to slip down into the small storeroom, early in the morning, and remain there a little while.  The room was all filled up with barrels, except a small open space under my trap-door.  This faced the door, the upper part of which was of glass, and purposely left uncurtained, that the curious might look in.  The air of this place was close; but it was so much better than the atmosphere of my cell,