feel proud to see how well I had learned to ride, and she was the one
that had taught me how to ride, for she had me on the horse when I was
three years old and from that time until she went home to come out no
more forever.

I was two and a half years, as near as I can remember, when my own slave
mother's house was burned to the ground, and I shall never forget that
Saturday night. My mother's husband had gone to a dance and mother was
there alone with her little ones, and we all came near getting burned
up. We were all asleep when I awoke and found the house in a blaze. I
did not know enough or I was so much scared that I did not call to my
mother, but I think that she heard me when I rolled out of the bed, and
she was out of the bed quick as could be and getting the feather beds
she threw them out of the door and got the children and threw them out,
and she, finding that she did not have them all, said, "My God! I have
not all of my little ones;" and she ran in the house to look and she
found me under the bed, for I saw so much fire that I was getting out of
it, and God be praised that I was saved from that fire, and I have not
had the time to run after any fires since, for that fire was all the
fire I want.

I had not to stay there then, for the time is near at hand when I shall
go to my white mother's to live, for she is in Tennessee and will come
home soon to be with her darling child; and when she shall start again I
shall go, and now the times are all well for me as then, but the time
has come that the Lord has called her away from her child to be with
Him, and how could I live without her? And she was to leave her sick
child there for her own mother to care for, and God will raise up
friends in this lonely world to look after those that cry unto heaven,
believing that He is a hearer of the true prayer. I shall always