A Slave Girls Story | Page 2

His footsteps on the North,
the South, the East, the West, and outride any man's ideas; and how
wonderful are all of his ways. And if we, as a race, will only put our
trust in Him, we shall gain the glorious victory, and be a people whose
God is the God of all this broad earth, and may we humble ourselves
before Him and call Him, Blessed.
I told you that my white mother did not like the idea of calling us her
slaves, and she always prayed God that I should never know what
slavery was, for she said I was never born to serve as did the slaves of
some of the people that owned them.
And God, in His love for me and to me, never let me know of it, as did
some of my own dear sisters, for some of them were hired out after the

old home was broken up.
My mother was sold at Richmond, Virginia, and a gentleman bought
her who lived in Georgia, and we did not know that she was sold until
she was gone; and the saddest thought was to me to know which way
she had gone, and I used to go outside and look up to see if there was
anything that would direct me, and I saw a clear place in the sky, and it
seemed to me the way she had gone, and I watched it three and a half
years, not knowing what that meant, and it was there the whole time
that mother was gone from her little ones.
On one bright Sunday I asked my older sister to go with me for a nice
walk and she did so, for she was the one that was so kind to the rest of
us--and we saw some sweet flowers on the wayside and we began to
have delight in picking them, when all at once I was led to leave her
alone with the flowers and to go where I could look up at that nice,
clear spot, and as I wanted to get as near to it as I could, I got on the
fence, and as I looked that way I saw a form coming to me that looked
like my dear mother's, and calling to my sister Frances to come at once
and see if that did not look like my dear mother and she came to us, so
glad to see us, and to ask after her baby that she was sold from that was
only six weeks old when she was taken from it; and I would that the
whole world could have seen the joy of a mother and her two girls on
that heaven-made day--a mother returning back to her own once more,
a mother that we did not know that we should ever see her face on this
earth more. And mother, not feeling good over the past events, had
made up her mind that she would take her children to a part of this land
where she thought that they would never be in bondage any more on
this earth.
So she sought out the head man that was placed there by the North to
look after the welfare of lately emancipated negroes of the South, to see
that they should have their rights as a freed people.
This gentleman's name was Major Bailley, who was a gentleman of the
highest type, and it was this loving man that sent my dear mother and
her ten little girls on to this lovely city, and the same time he informed
the people of Brooklyn that we were on the way and what time we

should reach there; and it seemed as though the whole city were out to
meet us. And as God would have it, six of us had homes on that same
day, and the people had their carriages there to take us to our new
homes.
This God-sent blessing was of a great help to mother, as she could get
the money to pay her rent, which was ten dollars per month, and God
bless those of my sisters who could help mother to care for her little
ones, for they had not been called home then, and God be praised for
all that we have ever did for her love and comfort while she kept house.
The subject was only a few years old, when she saw her heart so fixed
that she could not leave me at my mother's any longer, so she took me
to be her own dear, loving child, to eat, drink, sleep and to go wherever
she went, if it was for months, or even years; I had to be there as her
own and not as