L. was
concerned. I therefore found no severe trail at the moment of my
departure, such as I had experienced when separated from my home
in Tuckahoe. My home at my old master's was charmless to me; it
was not home, but a prison to me; on parting from it, I could not
feel that I was leaving anything which I could have enjoyed by
staying. My mother was now long dead; my grandmother was far
away, so that I seldom saw her; Aunt Katy was my unrelenting
tormentor; and my two sisters and brothers, owing to our early
separation in life, and the family-destroying power of slavery,
were, comparatively, stran<106>gers to me. The fact of our
relationship was almost blotted out. I looked for _home_
elsewhere, and was confident of finding none which I should
relish less than the one I was leaving. If, however, I found in
my new home to which I was going with such blissful
anticipations--hardship, whipping and nakedness, I had the
questionable consolation that I should not have escaped any one
of these evils by remaining under the management of Aunt Katy.
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