"All right," said he, and then, after some thought, he added: "Get your trunk ready by ten o’clock to-morrow morning, as all things will be in readiness by that time. Beulah, I will be a bondman no longer. Just think of it. Twenty-seven years old, and a slave!" "That’s right, Tom; stick to it! Minds are never to be sold! Stick to it!" was my instant reply. With immediate freedom and all its joys before him, the brave Tom did not let much grass grow under his feet. We kept a boat near the house, and although not an expert oarsman, he knew enough to handle it when called upon. In the darkness and silence of Tuesday night, he slipped over to the other side of the stream, then made his way for a mile or two down the Indiana side, where he ran the boat up a creek, near which stood a little cabin in which some acquaintances of his lived. He confided his secret to his friends, and as the man of the house kept a horse and wagon, the latter consented to convey our trunks to the house of a mutual friend in New Albany next morning. Then leaving this cabin and the boat tied up in the creek, Tom made his way to New Albany on foot, where his mission was also successful. With these preliminary preparations, he returned to the great house in safety, and it was never known that he had so much as been out of his own room! Of course there was some risk to run, but who would not dare all for freedom? As for that anxious Tuesday night, my excitement was such that I never slept a wink. I thought much of a similarly planned and quite successful dash for freedom that took place shortly before this near our place. A girl of fifteen and her brother, twelve years of age, were left alone one day to take care of the house while all the white people had gone away. They never suspected anything so unusual from a girl of fifteen, especially as she was mild and quiet. But after they had gone, Muriel called her brother Willy, and said, "Willie, do you see that boat? We are nothing but slaves, and yonder across the river lies Indiana—a free State. Master keeps money in the bureau, and I will burst it open and take what will carry you and me on the train to a place of safety and freedom. Let us take clothes along with us, and whatever we need. This is no robbery. It belongs to us by right, for slavery is nothing but a system of robbery, anyhow." So Muriel and Willy crossed the Ohio river in the open day, walked to the nearest railway station, took a train for the North, and speedily arrived in a land where they were slaves no longer.