Page:Behind the scenes, or, Thirty years a slave and four years in the White House.djvu/242

charge to other hands. After Mr. Garland's death, the widow moved to Vicksburg, Mississippi, and I lost sight of the family for a few years. My mother accompanied them to Vicksburg, where she died. I made two visits to Vicksburg as a free woman? the object of my second visit being to look after the few effects left, by my mother. As I did not visit my mother's grave at the time, the Garlands were much surprised, but I offered no explanation. The reason is not difficult to understand. My mother was buried in a public ground and the marks of her grave, as I learned, were so obscure that the spot could not be readily designated. To look upon a grave, and not feel certain whose ashes repose beneath the sod, is painful, and the doubt which mystifies you, weakens the force, if not the purity, of the love-offering from the heart. Memory preserved a sunny picture of my mother's face, and I did not wish to weave sombre threads—threads suggestive of a deserted