ugh, he added, "You see I didn't _steal_ it; dey _gub_ it
to me. I tell you, I had mighty hard time to keep de speculator from findin
it; but he didn't git it."

This is a fair specimen of how the moral sense is educated by slavery. When
a man has his wages stolen from him, year after year, and the laws sanction
and enforce the theft, how can he be expected to have more regard to
honesty than has the man who robs him? I have become somewhat enlightened,
but I confess that I agree with poor, ignorant, much-abused Luke, in
thinking he had a _right_ to that money, as a portion of his unpaid wages.
He went to Canada forthwith, and I have not since heard from him.

All that winter I lived in a state of anxiety. When I took the children out
to breathe the air, I closely observed the countenances of all I met. I
dreaded the approach of summer, when snakes and slaveholders make their
appearance. I was, in fact, a slave in New York, as subject to slave laws
as I had been in a Slave State. Strange incongruity in a State called free!

Spring returned, and I received warning from the south that Dr. Flint knew
of my return to my old place, and was making preparations to have me
caught. I learned afterwards that my dress, and that of Mrs. Bruce's
children, had been described to him by some of the Northern tools, which
slaveholders employ for their base purposes, and then indulge in sneers at
their cupidity and mean servility.

I immediately informed Mrs. Bruce of my danger, and she took prompt
measures for my safety. My place as nurse could not be supplied
immediately, and this generous, sympathizing lady proposed that I should
carry her baby away. It was a comfort to me to have the child with me; for
the heart is reluctant to be torn away from every object it loves. But how
few mothers would have consented to have one of their own babes become a
fugitive, for the sake of a poor, hunted nurse, on whom the legislators of
the country had let loose the bloodhounds! When I spoke of the sacrifice
she was making, in depriving herself of her dear baby, she replied, "It is
better for you to have baby with you, Linda; for if they get on your track,
they will be obliged to bring the child to me; and then, if there is a
possibility of saving you, you shall be saved."

This lady had a very wealthy relative, a benevolent gentleman in many
respects, but aristocratic and pro-slavery. He remonstrated with her for
harboring a fugitive slave; told