I cannot tell how old I am.  This destitution was among my
earliest troubles.  I learned when I grew up, that my master--and
this is the case with masters generally--allowed no questions to
be put to him, by which a slave might learn his <27
GRANDPARENTS>age.  Such questions deemed evidence of impatience,
and even of impudent curiosity.  From certain events, however,
the dates of which I have since learned, I suppose myself to have
been born about the year 1817.

The first experience of life with me that I now remember--and I
remember it but hazily--began in the family of my grandmother and
grandfather.  Betsey and Isaac Baily.  They were quite advanced
in life, and had long lived on the spot where they then resided. 
They were considered old settlers in the neighborhood, and, from
certain circumstances, I infer that my grandmother, especially,
was held in high esteem, far higher than is the lot of most
colored persons in the slave states.  She was a good nurse, and a
capital hand at making nets for catching shad and herring; and
these nets were in great demand, not only in Tuckahoe, but at
Denton and Hillsboro, neighboring villages.  She was not only
good at making the nets, but was also somewhat famous for her
good fortune in taking the fishes referred to.  I have known her
to be in the water half the day.  Grandmother was likewise more
provident than most of her neighbors in the preservation of
seedling sweet potatoes, and it happened to her--as it will
happen to any careful and thrifty person residing in an ignorant
and improvident community--to enjoy the reputation of having been
born to "good luck."  Her "good luck" was owing to the exceeding
care which she took in preventing the succulent root from getting
bruised in the digging, and in placing it beyond the reach of
frost, by actually burying it under the hearth of her cabin
during the winter months.  In the time of planting sweet
potatoes, "Grandmother Betty," as she was familiarly called, was
sent for in all directions, simply to place the seedling potatoes
in the hills; for superstition had it, that if "Grandmamma Betty
but touches them at planting, they will be sure to grow and
flourish."  This high reputation was full of advantage to her,
and to the children around her.  Though Tuckahoe had but few of
the good things of life, yet of such as it did possess
grandmother got a full share, in the way of presents.  If good
potato crops came after her planting, she was not forgotten by
those for whom she planted; and as she was remembered by others,
so she remembered the hungry little ones around her.

The dwelling of my grandmother and grandfather had few
pretensions.  It was a log hut, or cabin, built of clay, wood,
and straw.  At a distance it resembled--though it was smaller,
less commodious and less substantial--the cabins erected in the
western states by the first settlers.  To my child's eye,
however, it was a noble structure, admirably adapted to promote
the comforts and conveniences of its inmates.  A few rough,
Virginia fence-rails, flung loosely over the rafters above,
answered the triple purpose of floors, ceilings, and bedsteads. 
To be sure, this upper apartment was reached only by a ladder--
but what in the world for climbing could be better than a ladder? 
To me, this ladder was really a high invention, and possessed a
sort of charm as I played with delight upon the rounds of it.  In
this little hut there was a large family of children: I dare not
say how many.  My grandmother--whether because too old for field
service, or because she had so faithfully discharged the duties
of her station in early life, I know not--enjoyed the high
privilege of living in a cabin, separate from the quarter, with
no other burden than her own support, and the necessary care of
the little children, imposed.  She evidently esteemed it a great
fortune to live so.  The children were not her own, but her
grandchildren--the children of her daughters.  She took delight
in having them around her, and in attending to their few wants. 
The practice of separating children from their mother, and hiring
the latter out at distances too great to admit of their meeting,
except at long intervals, is a marked feature of the cruelty and
barbarity of the slave system.  But it is in harmony with the
grand aim of slavery, which, always and everywhere, is to reduce
man to a level with the brute.  It is a successful method of
obliterating <29 "OLD MASTER">from the mind and heart of the
slave, all just ideas of the sacredness of _the family_, as an
institution.

Most of the children, however, in this instance, being the
children of my grandmother's daughters, the notions of family,
and the reciprocal duties and benefits of the relation, had a
better chance of being understood than where children are
placed--as they often are in the hands of strangers, who have no
care for them, apart from the wishes of their masters.  The
daughters of my grandmother were five in number.  Their names
were JENNY, ESTHER, MILLY, PRISCILLA, and HARRIET.  The daughter
last named was my mother, of whom the reader shall learn more by-
and-by.

Living here, with my dear old grandmother and grandfather, it was
a long time before I knew myself to be _a slave_.  I knew many
other things before I knew that.  Grandmother and grandfather
were the greatest people in the world to me; and being with them
so snugly in their own little cabin--I supposed it be their own--
knowing no higher authority over me or the other children than
the authority of grandmamma, for a time there was nothing to
disturb me; but, as I grew larger and older, I learned by degrees
the sad fact, that the "little hut," and the lot on which it
stood, belonged not to my dear old grandparents, but to some
person who lived a great distance off, and who was called, by
grandmother, "OLD MASTER."  I further learned the sadder fact,