"God bless you!" exclaimed the woman. "It's a sin to say so, but I feel
as if I could fly since that dreadful weight is off. Oh, I want to fly,
for I dreamed of my baby, an' he smiled at me from heaven as if he said,
'I'm happy, mamma!'"
"You don't owe me nothin', Mary. I love a widder, as you air, an' she
begged me to come yer. When you git to Prencess Anne, whar I want you to
go, find Ellenory Dennis, an' tell her I've seen her boy, an' I'll bring
him back if I kin."
"Princess Anne? where is it?"
"It's maybe, forty mile from yer, Mary; half-way between sunrise and
sunset."
"Right south, sir?"
"That's it. Now I'll tell you how to git thar. Take this old woods road
along Broad Creek and walk to Laurel, five miles; it's a little town on
the creek. Keep in under the woods, but don't lose the road, fur every
foot of it's dangerous to niggers. You kin git thar, maybe, by dark. I
don't know nobody thar, Mary, an' I can't write, fur I never learned
how. But you go right to the house of some preacher of the Gospel, and
tell him a lie."
Mary opened her eyes.
"I wouldn't have you tell a lie to anybody but a good man," continued
Phoebus, "fur then it's so close to the Lord it won't git fur an'
pizen many, as lies always does. You must tell that preacher that you're
the runaway slave of Judge Custis of Prencess Anne, an' you're sorry you
run away, an' want to go home.
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