Page:The Under-Ground Railroad.djvu/49

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with three children; the other had no child. I hired a wagon, and went with this conductor the following evening to their place of concealment; on nearing the place, he took me through a forest, when only a few roods off the party, I heard a child cry. We found them nearly frozen. The mother's feet were so frost-bitten, that she could scarcely walk, and but for the excitement natural to her position, she would have considered it impossible to have walked. The children had suffered less, because the mother had deprived herself of every comfort to protect them from the cold. This conduct is an incontestible evidence of a mother's love, though she be black! We wrapped them in blankets, which we took for the purpose, and put them in our wagon, and conveyed them to my house. On the following evening, those who were able were conducted on their way. The mother and her three children remained at my house, she being totally disabled. I employed a doctor for her, who amputated one of her feet, but to no saving effect. She died in the full triumph of Christian faith. A few minutes before departing this life, she said, in a low tone of voice, "Will you see that my children are free?" Here was a mother's undying affections obviously manifested in a dying body. She loved freedom. She was much grieved because unable to pay me for my services. Occasionally, when feeling a little better, she would say, "If I am spared,