where she had been seized. She changed her name to Charity, and
succeeded in again joining her husband, but, alas, with the
heart-breaking thought that she had been compelled to leave her two
little boys in slavery and one of the little girls on the road for the
father to go back after. Thus she began life in freedom anew.

Levin and Peter, eight and six years of age respectively, were now left
at the mercy of the enraged owner, and were soon hurried off to a
Southern market and sold, while their mother, for whom they were daily
weeping, was they knew not where. They were too young to know that they
were slaves, or to understand the nature of the afflicting separation.
Sixteen years before Peter's return, his older brother (Levin) died a
slave in the State of Alabama, and was buried by his surviving brother,
Peter.

No idea other than that they had been "kidnapped" from their mother ever
entered their minds; nor had they any knowledge of the State from whence
they supposed they had been taken, the last names of their mother and
father, or where they were born. On the other hand, the mother was aware
that the safety of herself and her rescued children depended on keeping
the whole transaction a strict family secret. During the forty years of
separation, except two or three Quaker friends, including the devoted
friend of the slave, Benjamin Lundy, it is doubtful whether any other
individuals were let into the secret of her slave life. And when the
account given of Peter's return, etc., was published in 1850, it led
some of the family to apprehend serious danger from the partial
revelation of the early condition of the mother, especially as it was
about the time that the Fugitive Slave law was passed.

Hence, the author of "The Kidnapped and the Ransomed" was compelled to