was a boy, named Burrill, about thirteen years of age, who
did chores in a store kept by Mr. Riley, to assist his mother in
procuring a living for the family. After working with him two years, Mr.
Riley took him to New Orleans to wait on him while in that city on a
visit, and when he returned to St. Louis, he told the mother of the boy
that he had died with the yellow fever. Nothing more was heard from him,
no one supposing him to be alive. I was much astonished when Burrill
told me his story. Though I sympathized with him, I could not assist
him. We were both slaves. He was poor, uneducated, and without friends;
and if living, is, I presume, still held as a slave.

After selling out this cargo of human flesh, we returned to St. Louis,
and my time was up with Mr. Walker. I had served him one year, and it
was the longest year I ever lived.

CHAPTER VIII.

I was sent home, and was glad enough to leave the service of one who was
tearing the husband from the wife, the child from the mother, and the
sister from the brother,--but a trial more severe and heart-rending than
any which I had yet met with awaited me. My dear sister had been sold to
a man who was going to Natchez, and was lying in jail awaiting the hour
of his departure. She had expressed her determination to die, rather
than go to the far south, and she was put in jail for safe keeping. I
went to the jail the same day that I arrived, but as the jailor was not
in, I could not see her.

I went home to my master, in the country, and the first day after my
return, he came where I was at work, and spoke to me very politely. I
knew from his appearance that something was the matter. After talking
about my several journeys to New Orleans with Mr. Walker, he told me
that he was hard pressed for money, and as he had sold my mother and all
her children except me, he thought it would be better to sell me than
any other one, and that as I had been used to living in the city, he
thought it probable that I would prefer it to a country life. I raised
up my head, and looked him full in the face. When my eyes caught his, he
immediately looked to the ground. After a short pause, I said,

"Master, mother has often told me that you are a near relative of mine,
and I have often heard you admit the fact; and after you have hired me
out, and received, as I once heard you say, nine hundred dollars for my
services,--after receiving this large sum, will you sell me to be
carrie