The Narrative of Sojourner Truth | Page 9

consequently, she could not pray unless she
had time and opportunity to go by herself, where she could talk to God
without being overheard.

TRIALS CONTINUED.
When she had been at Mr. Nealy's several months, she began to beg
God most earnestly to send her father to her, and as soon as she
commenced to pray, she began as confidently to look for his coming,
and, ere it was long, to her great joy, he came. She had no opportunity
to speak to him of the troubles that weighed so heavily on her spirit,
while he remained; but when he left, she followed him to the gate, and
unburdened her heart to him, inquiring if he could not do something to
get her a new and better place. In this way the slaves often assist each
other, by ascertaining who are kind to their slaves, comparatively; and
then using their influence to get such an one to hire or buy their friends;
and masters, often from policy, as well as from latent humanity, allow
those they are about to sell or let, to choose their own places, if the
persons they happen to select for masters are considered safe pay. He
promised to do all he could, and they parted. But, every day, as long as
the snow lasted, (for there was snow on the ground at the time,) she
returned to the spot where they separated, and walking in the tracks her
father had made in the snow, repeated her prayer that 'God would help
her father get her a new and better place.'
A long time had not elapsed, when a fisherman by the name of Scriver
appeared at Mr. Nealy's, and inquired of Isabel 'if she would like to go
and live with him.' She eagerly answered 'Yes,' and nothing doubting
but he was sent in answer to her prayer; and she soon started off with
him, walking while he rode; for he had bought her at the suggestion of
her father, paying one hundred and five dollars for her. He also lived in
Ulster County, but some five or six miles from Mr. Nealy's.

Scriver, besides being a fisherman, kept a tavern for the
accommodation of people of his own class-for his was a rude,
uneducated family, exceedingly profane in their language, but, on the
whole, an honest, kind and well-disposed people.
They owned a large farm, but left it wholly unimproved; attending
mainly to their vocations of fishing and inn-keeping. Isabella declares
she can ill describe the kind of life she led with them. It was a wild,
out-of-door kind of lief. She was expected to carry fish, to hoe corn, to
bring roots and herbs from the woods for beers, go to the Strand for a
gallon of molasses or liquor as the case might require, and 'browse
around,' as she expresses it. It was a life that suited her well for the
time-being as devoid of hardship or terror as it was of improvement; a
need which had not yet become a want. Instead of improving at this
place, morally, she retrograded, as their example taught her to curse;
and it was here that she took her first oath. After living with them for
about a year and a half, she was sold to one John J. Dumont, for the
sum of seventy pounds. This was in 1810. Mr. Dumont lived in the
same county as her former masters, in the town of New Paltz, and she
remained with him till a short time previous to her emancipation by the
State, in 1828.

HER STANDING WITH HER NEW MASTER AND MISTRESS.
Had Mrs. Dumont possessed that vein of kindness and consideration
for the slaves, so perceptible in her husband's character, Isabella would
have been as comfortable here, as one had best be, if one must be a
slave. Mr. Dumont had been nursed in the very lap of slavery, and
being naturally a man of kind feelings, treated his slaves with all the
consideration he did his other animals, and more, perhaps. But Mrs.
Dumont, who had been born and educated in a non-slaveholding family,
and, like many others, used only to work-people, who, under the most
stimulating of human motives, were willing to put forth their every
energy, could not have patience with the creeping gait, the dull
understanding, or see any cause for the listless manners and careless,
slovenly habits of the poor down-trodden outcast-entirely forgetting
that every high and efficient motive had been removed far from him;
and that, had not his very intellect been crushed out of him, the slave
would find little ground for aught but hopeless despondency. From this

source arose a long series of trials in the life of our heroine, which we
must pass over