At one time, your first wife, Mrs.Lucretia, heard me sighing and saw me shedding tears, and asked of me the matter, but I was afraid to tell her.

I was puzzled with this question, till one night while sitting in the kitchen, I heard some of the old slaves talking of their parents having been stolen from Africa by white men, and were sold here as slaves.

The whole mystery was solved at once.

Very soon after this, my Aunt Jinny and Uncle Noah ran away, and the great noise made about it by your father-in-law, made me for the first time acquainted with the fact, that there were free states as well as slave states.

From that time, I resolved that I would some day run away.