Page:Memoir and poems of Phillis Wheatley, a native African and a slave.djvu/31

Rh food; and the families of those who were fighting for their country, most of whom had been cherished in the lap of plenty, were glad to obtain their daily bread. The inhabitants of Boston were fleeing in all direction; and Phillis accompanied her husband to Wilmington, in this State. In an obscure country village, the necessaries of life are always obtained with more difficulty than in a populous town, and in this season of scarcity, Phillis suffered much from privation—from absolute want—and from painful exertions to which she was unaccustomed, and for which her frail constitution unfitted her. We cannot be surprised that, under these distressing circumstances, her health, which had been much improved by her voyage to England, should have again declined. We rather wonder, that one who had been so tenderly reared, and so fondly nurtured, should have borne up, for so long a season, against such an increasing burthen of misfortune and affliction.

In the course of these years of suffering, she became the mother of three infants, who inherited the frail health of their parent; and thus to her other cares was added the anxiety of a mother, watching the flickering flame glowing in the bosom of her offspring, and trembling every moment, lest the breath of adversity should extinguish a life so dear to her. We know little 3