to live with Mr. Hugh Auld, a brother to Mr. Thomas Auld, my
old master's son-in-law. I received this information about three
days before my departure. They were three of the happiest days of my
childhood. I spent the largest part of these three days in the creek,
washing off the plantation scurf, and preparing for my new home. Mrs.
Lucretia took a lively interest in getting me ready. She told me I
must get all the dead skin off my feet and knees, before I could go to
Baltimore, for the people there were very cleanly, and would laugh at me
if I looked dirty; and, besides, she was intending to give me a pair of
trowsers, which I should not put on unless I got all the dirt off. This
was a warning to which I was bound to take heed; for the thought of
owning a pair of trowsers, was great, indeed. It was almost a sufficient
motive, not only to induce me to scrub off the _mange_ (as pig drovers
would call it) but the skin as well. So I went at it in good earnest,
working for the first time in the hope of reward. I was greatly excited,
and could hardly consent to sleep, lest I should be left. The ties that,
ordinarily, bind children to their homes, were all severed, or they
never had any existence in my case, at least so far as the home
plantation of Col. L. was concerned. I therefore found no severe trail
at the moment of my departure, such as I had experienced when separated
from my home in Tuckahoe. My home at my old master's was charmless to
me; it was not home, but a prison to me; on parting from it, I could not
feel that I was leaving anything which I could have enjoyed by staying.
My mother was now long dead; my grandmother was far away, so that I
seldom saw her; Aunt Katy was my unrelenting tormentor; and my two
sisters and brothers, owing to our early separation in life, and the
family-destroying power of slavery, were, comparatively, strangers{106}
to me. The fact of our relationship was almost blotted out. I looked
for _home_ elsewhere, and was confident of finding none which I should
relish less than the one I was leaving. If, however, I found in my new
home to which I was going with such blissful anticipations--hardship,
whipping and nakedness, I had the questionable consolation that I
should not have escaped any one of these evils by remaining under the
management of Aunt Katy. Then, too, I thought, since I had endured much
in this line on Lloyd's plantation, I could endure as much elsewhere,
and especially at Bal