My sister Frances was hired out and we did not see her from one
Christmas to the other, for she was a good way off where she could not
get home. She was treated very badly by some of those where she lived
and her limbs had been sprained so that she could hardly move on them.
When later on the Lord had it so arranged that she was taken home to
live, where she could be cared for, she soon got better and was able to
go about helping mother, with the rest of the children, for my brother
who had to help her to care for the children was gone, and she was all
the help that my mother had, for I was not large enough to do much and
had not been put to mind the children.

The gentleman that my dear brother belonged to was a Methodist and a
minister. He did not want to go to the war and so he sent my poor
brother to defend what belonged to him, and he did not get the good of
it after all, for my brother was determined that he would gain his
freedom if he could and he tried and did not get tired of trying.

Then my sister Annie was given to the gentleman's married son and she
was not with us, and sister Tempy Green was with the minister, and she
was one of the dead ones that mother had a time to get. Maggie, Susie,
Martha and Mary were at the same place where mother was sold from, and
she went and got them at once. It was like a dream to them to see how
far she had been sold and to see her back there again.

Sister Lavinia was at the same place where I was and she was treated
very badly by the man's own daughter, for she would whip her without
cause. Sister Rosa was at the same place and she was three and a half
years on mother's return. As I told you, she was six weeks old when
mother was sold and that made it three years and three months that
mother was gone from her own native home to a part of the country where