He again, as usual,
bewailed his loneliness,-spoke in tones of anguish of his many
children, saying, "They are all taken away from me! I have now not
one to give me a cup of cold water-why should I live and not die?"
Isabella, whose heart yearned over her father, and who would have made
any sacrifice to have been able to be with, and take care of him, tried
to comfort, by telling him that 'she had heard the white folks say,
that all the slaves in the State would be freed in ten years, and that
then she would come and take care of him.' 'I would take just as good
care of you as Mau-mau would, if she was here'-continued Isabel. 'Oh,
my child,' replied he, 'I cannot live that long.' 'Oh, do, daddy, do
live, and I will take such good care of you,' was her rejoinder. She
now says, 'Why, I thought then, in my ignorance, that he could live, if
he would. I just as much thought so, as I ever thought any thing in my
life-and I insisted on his living: but he shook his head, and insisted
he could not.'
But before Bomefree's good constitution would yield either to age,
exposure, or a strong desire to die, the Ardinburghs again tired of
him, and offered freedom to two old slaves-Caesar, brother of Mau-mau
Bett, and his wife Betsy-on condition that they should take care of
James. (I was about to say, 'their brother-in-law'-but as slaves are
neither husbands nor wives in law, the idea of their being
brothers-in-law is truly ludicrous.
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