Who among us won't cry reading "dis":
"
than four or five times in my life ; and each of these
times was very short in duration, and at night. She
was hired by a Mr. Stewart, who lived about twelve
miles from my home.
She made her journeys to see
me in the night, travelling the whole distance on foot,
after the performance of her days work.
She was a field hand, and a whipping is the penalty of not being
in the field at sunrise, unless a slave has special permission from his or her master to the contrary a permission which they seldom get, and one that gives to him that gives it the proud name of being a kind master. I do not recollect of ever seeing my mother by the light of day. She was with me in the night. She would lie down with me, and get me to sleep, but long before I waked she was gone. Very little communication ever took place between us.
Death soon ended what little we could have while she lived, and with it her hardships and suffering. She died when I was about seven years old, on one of my masters farms, near Lees Mill.
I was not allowed to be present during her illness, at her death, or burial.
She was gone long before I knew any thing about it.
Never having enjoyed, to any considerable extent, her
soothing presence, her tender and watchful care, I received the tidings' of her death with much the same emotions I should have probably felt at the death of a stranger.
From: Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass published c. 1845