"Oh, dear, that was the only thing that saved your life. If you had stirred a particle they would have torn you in pieces. I was so anxious to have Ann see you, I forgot the hounds until I started back, and I liked to have fainted, for I know they were awful. I liked to have screamed out 'God have mercy on that dear friend,' for I was 'most sure I'd find you killed." "Oh, no, the Lord has preserved me, and I am not harmed." She was so badly frightened that it was some time before her voice ceased trembling; but He who is ever present with his trusting children was there. Arrangements were made for Ann to go North, but if a word of suspicion was heard, I told her she must defer going to a future time; that she must go as her brother went, perfectly independent of any one, which she was confident of doing; but she wished to go on the same boat with me, if no one else was going from their city. I learned through her friend that she was overheard to ask a friend of hers for a shawl for a journey. I sent her word to abandon the idea of going then at once; that I should take the first boat for home. She did not obtain her freedom until after her mother's death, two or three years later. I did not regard the trip lost, painful as it was. There was on the boat a sad couple, taken from a number of their children by a young beardless boy, perhaps eighteen or twenty, small and slender. I noticed them frequently in tears. They were noticed by a few of the passengers, who made remarks about the sad faces of those negroes. Said one heartless woman, "Look at that nigger cryin'. I don't see what she's cryin' about; she's got her young one and man to her heels." I carelessly watched for an opportunity to speak with one or both of these children of sorrow. As they sat on a pile of cable on the rear deck I caught the opportunity to inquire where they were going. "We don't know; our young massa got to frettin', an' ole massa gib us to him and some money, an' tole him to go. We lef' three bigger chillun behin'; never 'spects to see 'em ag'in; I wish he'd buy a plantation somewhar, so we could go to work; 'pears like thar's no comfort for us poor people, only when we's got work, an' stops studyin' so much." As the tears began to fall thick and fast, I took them by the hand and told them Jesus was the friend of the poor, and he had many followers who also remembered them in prayer. And he knew of their sorrow, and as they went to him he would comfort their sorrowing hearts. Pointing to his wife, he said, "She knows that, and I wish I did." I charged them to make no mention of my having spoken to them. For while they were slaves, I was not free. This young man with his heavy-hearted couple left our boat at Pine Bluff.