Page:A hairdresser's experience in high life.djvu/17

Rh removed to Louisville, where I was for three months a prisoner, and this for doing what I conscientiously felt to be a Christian deed. Here every persuasion was resorted to, to induce me to confess having committed a wrong. Then I was threatened, and told that I should be tried with Jones and Leavitt, the murderers; but, like Job, I adhered to my integrity to the last, preferring to be tried with, and die with (if necessary), those who had killed the body, rather than shrink from owning that I had boldly aided in rescuing the soul of an oppressed fellow-being. I said in reply to those who examined me, that I recognized no crime in what I had done—meant none. My speech to the court resulted in my acquittal, and I was permitted to go free ever afterward, in both free and slave states.

After these things, I sojourned awhile in Madison, Indiana, in the family of Mr. W., whose wife was the daughter of Mr. L., of Baltimore, well known from his interest in the colonization cause. But Madison was too quiet a town for me, and I returned to the Queen City, where I was fortunate enough to obtain a situation in the family of Mr. N. L., as nurse to a favorite grandchild, and son of Mrs. A. This dear lady I can not thank too much for her kind advice on many a serious occasion. I had a fiery temper, and she taught me to control it to a degree astonishing even to myself.

Of my little charge, I was very fond; and am as proud now of the grown young gentleman, whose little feet I trained to walking, and whose lips I taught to lisp many a childish sentence.

In this family, the cook and myself fell to open war,