The Narrative of Sojourner Truth | Page 7

around. If,
when he made a removal, the place where he was going was not too far
off, he took up his line of march, staff in hand, and asked for no
assistance. If it was twelve or twenty miles, they gave him a ride. While
he was living in this way, Isabella was twice permitted to visit him.
Another time she walked twelve miles, and carried her infant in her
arms to see him, but when she reached the place where she hoped to
find him, he had just left for a place some twenty miles distant, and she
never saw him more. The last time she did see him, she found him
seated on a rock, by the road side, alone, and far from any house. He
was then migrating from the house of one Ardinburgh to that of another,
several miles distant. His hair was white like wool-he was almost
blind-and his gait was more a creep than a walk-but the weather was
warm and pleasant, and he did not dislike the journey. When Isabella
addressed him, he recognized her voice, and was exceeding glad to see

her. He was assisted to mount the wagon, was carried back to the
famous cellar of which we have spoken, and there they held their last
earthly conversation. He again, as usual, bewailed his loneliness,-spoke
in tones of anguish of his many children, saying, "They are all taken
away from me! I have now not one to give me a cup of cold water-why
should I live and not die?" Isabella, whose heart yearned over her father,
and who would have made any sacrifice to have been able to be with,
and take care of him, tried to comfort, by telling him that 'she had heard
the white folks say, that all the slaves in the State would be freed in ten
years, and that then she would come and take care of him.' 'I would take
just as good care of you as Mau-mau would, if she was here'-continued
Isabel. 'Oh, my child,' replied he, 'I cannot live that long.' 'Oh, do,
daddy, do live, and I will take such good care of you,' was her rejoinder.
She now says, 'Why, I thought then, in my ignorance, that he could live,
if he would. I just as much thought so, as I ever thought any thing in
my life-and I insisted on his living: but he shook his head, and insisted
he could not.'
But before Bomefree's good constitution would yield either to age,
exposure, or a strong desire to die, the Ardinburghs again tired of him,
and offered freedom to two old slaves-Caesar, brother of Mau-mau Bett,
and his wife Betsy-on condition that they should take care of James. (I
was about to say, 'their brother-in-law'-but as slaves are neither
husbands nor wives in law, the idea of their being brothers-in-law is
truly ludicrous.) And although they were too old and infirm to take care
of themselves, (Caesar having been afflicted for a long time with
fever-sores, and his wife with the jaundice), they eagerly accepted the
boon of freedom, which had been the life-long desire of their
souls-though at a time when emancipation was to them little more than
destitution, and was a freedom more to be desired by the master than
the slave. Sojourner declares of the slaves in their ignorance, that 'their
thoughts are no longer than her finger.'

DEATH OF BOMEFREE.

A rude cabin, in a lone wood, far from any neighbors, was granted to
our freed friends, as the only assistance they were now to expect.
Bomefree, from this time, found his poor needs hardly supplied, as his

new providers were scarce able to administer to their own wants.
However, the time drew near when things were to be decidedly worse
rather than better; for they had not been together long, before Betty
died, and shortly after, Caesar followed her to 'that bourne from
whence no traveller returns'-leaving poor James again desolate, and
more helpless than ever before; as, this time, there was no kind family
in the house, and the Ardinburghs no longer invited him to their homes.
Yet, lone, blind and helpless as he was, James for a time lived on. One
day, an aged colored woman, named Soan, called at his shanty, and
James besought her, in the most moving manner, even with tears, to
tarry awhile and wash and mend him up, so that he might once more be
decent and comfortable; for he was suffering dreadfully with the filth
and vermin that had collected upon him.
Soan was herself an emancipated slave, old and weak, with no one to
care for her; and she lacked the courage to undertake a job of such
seeming magnitude, fearing she might