Several days after this conversation took place, Mrs. Mitchell, with
her baby and nurse, Lucy Wash, made a visit to her grandmother's,
leaving orders that I should be sold before her return; so I was not
surprised to be ordered by Mr. Mitchell to pack up my clothes and get
ready to go down the river, for I was to be sold that morning, and
leave, on the steamboat Alex. Scott, at 3 o'clock in the afternoon.

"Can't I go see my mother, first?" I asked.

"No," he replied, not very gently, "there is no time for that, you can
see her when you come back. So hurry up and get ready, and let us have
no more words about it!"

How I did hate him! To hear him talk as if I were going to take a
pleasure trip, when he knew that if he sold me South, as he intended,
I would never see my dear mother again.

However, I hastily ran up stairs and packed my trunk, but my mother's
injunction, "never to go out of the city," was ever present in my
mind.

Mr. Mitchell was Superintendent of Indian Affairs, his office being in
the dwelling house, and I could hear him giving orders to his clerk,
as I ran lightly down the stairs, out of the front door to the street,
and with fleet foot, I skimmed the road which led to my mother's door,
and, reaching it, stood trembling in every limb with terror and
fatigue.

I could not gain admittance, as my mother was away to work and the
door was locked. A white woman, living next door, and who was always