A Slave Girls Story | Page 5

the Bailley family--Mr. and
Mrs. Bailley, Miss Abbey Bailley, Mr. Bailley's sister, a young lady in
her teens, Miss Ella Bailley, and a nice boy by the name of Johnny
Bailley, and they were a nice family and they took me to church on
Sunday morning and sent me to Sunday-school in the afternoon with

their children, and what a heaven it seemed to me from the place where
I was living at first.
I shall always remember my dear white mother, of whom I spoke of in
the first part, and whom I shall call your attention to in many more
pages of this little Life Book, and shall always remember her with love
and the kindest feeling. She was a member of the true Methodist
Church and was never seen by her darling child from the House of God
since I could remember, for I was with her at all times on the family
horse, Kimble, and when I got large enough to ride alone she bought
me a fine black that had all the metal that a horse could have, and his
name was Charlie Engrum, and she paid a large price for him, and he
was the grandest horse I ever saw, and it was my delight to be near a
horse or horses when I was a child, for I did not have any fear of any
kind of horse, and I would take a ride the first thing in the morning,
even before I would have my breakfast, and my dear white mother
would save it for me as she knew that I would have that ride first; for it
always made her feel proud to see how well I had learned to ride, and
she was the one that had taught me how to ride, for she had me on the
horse when I was three years old and from that time until she went
home to come out no more forever.
I was two and a half years, as near as I can remember, when my own
slave mother's house was burned to the ground, and I shall never forget
that Saturday night. My mother's husband had gone to a dance and
mother was there alone with her little ones, and we all came near
getting burned up. We were all asleep when I awoke and found the
house in a blaze. I did not know enough or I was so much scared that I
did not call to my mother, but I think that she heard me when I rolled
out of the bed, and she was out of the bed quick as could be and getting
the feather beds she threw them out of the door and got the children and
threw them out, and she, finding that she did not have them all, said,
"My God! I have not all of my little ones;" and she ran in the house to
look and she found me under the bed, for I saw so much fire that I was
getting out of it, and God be praised that I was saved from that fire, and
I have not had the time to run after any fires since, for that fire was all
the fire I want.

I had not to stay there then, for the time is near at hand when I shall go
to my white mother's to live, for she is in Tennessee and will come
home soon to be with her darling child; and when she shall start again I
shall go, and now the times are all well for me as then, but the time has
come that the Lord has called her away from her child to be with Him,
and how could I live without her? And she was to leave her sick child
there for her own mother to care for, and God will raise up friends in
this lonely world to look after those that cry unto heaven, believing that
He is a hearer of the true prayer. I shall always remember that Saturday
afternoon when I was lying so sick when my dearly beloved white
mother took so sick, and they had the doctor there for me, and he had to
see after her the same time, and she was getting so much worse all the
time and the doctor had not any hopes of her, and they took me from
the room where she was, to a room upstairs and she had them to take
me down to look at her once more. That was on Sunday and on
Monday she heard the call to her to come up to that blessed land where
she should be forever with the Lord and her dear husband.
What a glory it must be for