Page:The Under-Ground Railroad.djvu/121

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101

Uncle Tom are assumed, their high colouring is the result of her vivid imagination; their beautiful and most wonderful construction in forming a whole, thus embellishing the story in a manner peculiar to herself, are the rich productions of her refined and well-cultivated mind. But as facts, they are true. Eliza, whose real name was Mary, ran away from Kentucky, her child was truly sold, but not delivered to the purchaser; mothers alone feel the keenest pain when separated from their children; she passed many sleepless nights in her humble cottage, looking down on the face of her loved one as it innocently slept its hours away; the tears chased each other down her youthful cheeks; now and then she gave a deep and heavy sigh; to give ease to her aching heart a flood of tears would again burst forth; as she thought of the parting hour, with increased vigour she pressed her child to her heaving breast; she pressed its lips to her own, saying, "Poor thing, mother's dear lamb will soon be gone, what will mother do? What will become of her little child? Oh, I can't live!" Sorrow again seized her trembling frame, she sunk beneath its paralytic stroke. Her mind was like a dungeon dark; no penetrating rays of light. To her the future was much darker than the past. She was a helpless Slave, doomed to misery and woe, for no fault of her own, and with