sleep, even for the slave-boy; and its balm was never more
welcome to any wounded soul than it was to mine, the first night
I spent at the domicile of old master. The reader may be
surprised that I narrate so minutely an incident apparently so
trivial, and which must have occurred when I was not more than
seven years old; but as I wish to give a faithful history of my
experience in slavery, I cannot withhold a circumstance which, at
the time, affected me so deeply. Besides, this was, in fact, my
first introduction to the realities of slavery.


CHAPTER III
_Parentage_

MY FATHER SHROUDED IN MYSTERY--MY MOTHER--HER PERSONAL
APPEARANCE--INTERFERENCE OF SLAVERY WITH THE NATURAL AFFECTIONS
OF MOTHER AND CHILDREN--SITUATION OF MY MOTHER--HER NIGHTLY
VISITS TO HER BOY--STRIKING INCIDENT--HER DEATH--HER PLACE OF
BURIAL.


If the reader will now be kind enough to allow me time to grow
bigger, and afford me an opportunity for my experience to become
greater, I will tell him something, by-and-by, of slave life, as
I saw, felt, and heard it, on Col. Edward Lloyd's plantation, and
at the house of old master, where I had now, despite of myself,
most suddenly, but not unexpectedly, been dropped. Meanwhile, I
will redeem my promise to say something more of my dear mother.

I say nothing of _father_, for he is shrouded in a mystery I have