Bright and early in the morning we were called up, and the rest of the hoe cake was eaten for breakfast, with a little meat, some coffee sweetened with molasses.  The little wanderers and their mother shared our meal, and then they started again on their journey towards their home among their kinsfolk, and we never saw them again.  My mother said, “God bless you!  I wish you all good luck.  I hope you will reach your home safely.”  Then mother said to us, “You young ones put away that straw and sweep up the place, because I have to go to my work.”  But she came at noon and brought us a nice dinner, more satisfactory than the supper and breakfast we had had.  We children were delighted that there were no little white children to share our meal this time.

In time, my older sister, Caroline, and myself got work among good people, where we soon forgot all the hard times in the little log cabin by the roadside in Clayton, Alabama.

Up to my womanhood, even to this day, these memories fill my mind.  Some kind friends’ eyes may see these pages, and may they recall some fond memories of their happy childhood, as what I have written brings back my young life in the great Sunny South.

I am something of the type of Moses on this 49th birthday; not that I am wrapped in luxuries, but that my thoughts are wrapped in the luxuries of the heavenly life in store for me, when my life work is done, and my friends shall be blessed by the work I shall have done.  For God has commanded me to write this book, that some one may read and receive comfort and courage to do what God commands them to do.  God bless every soul who shall read this true life story of one born in slavery.

It is now six years since the inspiration to write this book came to me in the Franklin evening school.  I have struggled on, helped by friends.  God said, “Write the book and I will help you.”  And He has.

It was through a letter of my life that the principal of the Franklin school said, “Write the book and I will help you.”  But he died before the next term, and I worked on.  On this, my 49th birthday, I can say I believe that the book is close to the finish.

    My life is like the summer rose
    That opens to the morning sky,
    But ere the shades of evening close
    Is scattered on the ground to die. 
    Yet on the rose’s humble bed
    The sweetest dews of night are shed,
    As if she wept a tear for me,
    As if she wept the waste to see.

    My life is like the autumn leaf
    That trembles in the moon’s pale ray. 
    Its hold is frail, its date is brief,
    Restless, and soon to pass away. 
    Yet, ere that leaf shall fall and fade,
    The parent tree will mourn its shade,
    The winds bewail the leafless tree;
    But none shall breathe a sigh for me.