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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 escort her to school.
When they rambled through the woods, in search of berries, it was his delight to sit beside her on some old stump, and twist her glossy brown ringlets over his fingers.
A lovely picture they must have made in the green, leafy frame-work of the woods—that fair, blue-eyed girl, and the handsome,
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