long habit of enforced wakefulness, for the night watches in the
woods, and in dens and caves of the earth, when the pursuers were
on her track, and the terrified ones were trembling in her shadow.
We do not thank _you_ for this, cruel woman! for if you did her a
service, you did it ignorantly, and only for your own gratification.
But Harriet's powers of endurance failed at last, and she was
returned to her master, a poor, scarred wreck, nothing but skin and
bone, with the words that "She wasn't worth a sixpence."

The poor old mother nursed her back to life, and her naturally
good constitution asserted itself, so that as she grew older she
began to show signs of the wonderful strength which in after
years, when the fugitive slave law was in operation in New York
State, enabled her to seize a man from the officers who had him in
charge, and while numbers were pursuing her, and the shot was
flying like hail about her head, to bear him in her own strong
arms beyond the reach of danger.

As soon as she was strong enough for work, Harriet was hired out
to a man whose tyranny was worse, if possible, than that of the
woman she had left. Now it was out of door drudgery which was put
upon her. The labor of the horse and the ox, the lifting of
barrels of flour and other heavy weights were given to her; and
powerful men often stood astonished to see this woman perform
feats of strength from which they shrunk incapable. This cruelty
she looks upon as a blessing in disguise (a very questionable
shape the blessing took, methinks), for by it she was prepared for
after needs.

Still the pressure upon the brain continued, and with the weight