The
most familiar appellation of her mother was 'Mau-mau Bett.' She was
the mother of some ten or twelve children; though Sojourner is far from
knowing the exact number of her brothers and sisters; she being the
youngest, save one, and all older than herself having been sold before
her remembrance. She was privileged to behold six of them while she
remained a slave.
Of the two that immediately preceded her in age, a boy of five years,
and a girl of three, who were sold when she was an infant, she heard
much; and she wishes that all who would fain believe that slave parents
have not natural affection for their offspring could have listened as
she did, while Bomefree and Mau-mau Bett,-their dark cellar lighted by
a blazing pine-knot,-would sit for hours, recalling and recounting
every endearing, as well as harrowing circumstance that taxed memory
could supply, from the histories of those dear departed ones, of whom
they had been robbed, and for whom their hearts still bled. Among the
rest, they would relate how the little boy, on the last morning he was
with them, arose with the birds, kindled a fire, calling for his
Mau-mau to 'come, for all was now ready for her'-little dreaming of the
dreadful separation which was so near at hand, but of which his parents
had an uncertain, but all the more cruel foreboding. There was snow on
the ground, at the time of which we are speaking; and a large
old-fashioned sleigh was seen to drive up to the door of the late Col.
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