In two or three weeks after the body of the President was carried
through, my sister made her escape, but by some means we entirely
lost trace of her. We heard she was in a free State. In three months
my mother also escaped. She rose quite early in the morning, took my
little brother, and arrived at my place of service in the afternoon. I
was much surprised, and asked my mother how she came there. She could
scarcely tell me for weeping, but I soon found out the mystery. After
so many long years and so many attempts, for this was her seventh, she
at last succeeded, and we were now all free. My mother had been a
slave for more than forty-three years, and liberty was very sweet to
her. The sound of freedom was music in our ears; the air was pure and
fragrant; the genial rays of the glorious sun burst forth with a new
lustre upon us, and all creation resounded in responses of praise to
the author and creator of him who proclaimed life and freedom to the
slave. I was overjoyed with my personal freedom, but the joy at my
mother's escape was greater than anything I had ever known. It was a
joy that reaches beyond the tide and anchors in the harbor of eternal
rest. While in oppression, this eternal life-preserver had continually
wafted her toward the land of freedom, which she was confident of
gaining, whatever might betide. Our joy that we were permitted to
mingle together our earthly bliss in glorious strains of freedom was
indescribable. My mother responded with the children of Israel,--"The
Lord is my strength and my song. The Lord is a man of war, and the
Lord is his name." We left Indianapolis the day after my mother
arrived, and took the cars at eleven o'clock the following evening for
St. Louis, my native State. We were then free, and instead of being
hurried along, bare headed and half naked, through cars and boats, by
a brutal master with a bill of sale in his pocket, we were our own,
comfortably clothed, and having the true emblems of freedom.