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.'