prayed earnestly that he might pass through without encountering a
snake. When he rose up and attempted to take his basket, he perceived a
large black snake lying close beside the rail. It may well be believed
that he went through the thicket too fast to allow any grass to grow
under his feet.

When he drove the cows to and from pasture, he often met an old colored
man named Mingo. His sympathizing heart was attracted toward him,
because he had heard the neighbors say he was stolen from Africa when he
was a little boy. One day, he asked Mingo what part of the world he came
from; and the poor old man told how he was playing with other children
among the bushes, on the coast of Africa, when white men pounced upon
them suddenly and dragged them off to a ship. He held fast hold of the
thorny bushes, which tore his hands dreadfully in the struggle. The old
man wept like a child, when he told how he was frightened and distressed
at being thus hurried away from father, mother, brothers and sisters,
and sold into slavery, in a distant land, where he could never see or
hear from them again. This painful story made a very deep impression
upon Isaac's mind; and, though he was then only nine years old, he made
a solemn vow to himself that he would be the friend of oppressed
Africans during his whole life.

He was as precocious in love, as in other matters. Not far from his
home, lived a prosperous and highly respectable Quaker family, named
Tatum. There were several sons, but only one daughter; a handsome child,
with clear, fair complexion, blue eyes, and a profusion of brown
curly hair. She was Isaac's cousin, twice removed; for their
great-grandfathers were half-brothers. When he was only eight years old,
and she was not yet five, he made up his mind that little Sarah Tatum
was his wife. He used to walk a mile and a half every day, on purpose to