The conditions of
brotherly and sisterly feeling were wanting--we had never nestled
and played together. My poor mother, like many other slave-
women, had many _children_, but NO FAMILY! The domestic hearth,
with its holy lessons and precious endearments, is abolished in
the case of a slave-mother and her children. "Little children,
love one another," are words seldom heard in a slave cabin.
I really wanted to play with my brother and sisters, but they
were strangers to me, and I was full of fear that grandmother
might leave without taking me with her. Entreated to do so,
however, and that, too, by my dear grandmother, I went to the
back part of the house, to play with them and the other children.
_Play_, however, I did not, but stood with my back against the
wall, witnessing the playing of the others. At last, while
standing there, one of the children, who had been in the kitchen,
ran up to me, in a sort of roguish glee, exclaiming, "Fed, Fed!
grandmammy gone! grandmammy gone!" I could not believe it; yet,
fearing the worst, I ran into the kitchen, to see for myself, and
found it even so.
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