said
this because she thought Mrs. Wood would easily get me back again. I
replied to her, "Ma'am, this is the fourth time my master and mistress
have driven me out, or threatened to drive me--and I will give them no
more occasion to bid me go. I was not willing to leave them, for I am a
stranger in this country, but now I must go--I can stay no longer to be so
used." Mrs. Pell then went up stairs to my mistress, and told that I would
go, and that she could not stop me. Mrs. Wood was very much hurt and
frightened when she found I was determined to go out that day. She said,
"If she goes the people will rob her, and then turn her adrift." She did
not say this to me, but she spoke it loud enough for me to hear; that it
might induce me not to go, I suppose. Mr. Wood also asked me where I was
going to. I told him where I had been, and that I should never have gone
away had I not been driven out by my owners. He had given me a written
paper some time before, which said that I had come with them to England by
my own desire; and that was true. It said also that I left them of my own
free will, because I was a free woman in England; and that I was idle and
would not do my work--which was not true. I gave this paper afterwards to
a gentleman who inquired into my case.[13]

[Footnote 13: See page 24.]

I went into the kitchen and got my clothes out. The nurse and the servant
girl were there, and I said to the man who was going to take out my trunk,
"Stop, before you take up this trunk, and hear what I have to say before
these people. I am going out of this house, as I was ordered; but I have
done no wrong at all to my owners, neither here nor in the West Indies. I
always worked very hard to please them, both by night and day; but there
was no giving satisfaction, for my mistress could never be satisfied with
reasonable service. I told my mistress I was sick, and yet she has ordered
me out of doors. This is the fourth time; and now I am going out."

And so I came out, and went and carried my trunk to the Moravians. I then
returned back to Mash the shoe-black's house, and begged his wife to take
me in. I had a little West Indian money in my trunk; and they got it
changed for me. This helped to support me for a little while. The man's
wife was very kind to me. I was very sick, and she boiled nourishing
things up for me. She also sent for a doctor to see me, and he sent me
medicine, which did me good, though I was ill for a long time