"MY FATHER," said Jemima, "seduced my mother, a pretty girl, with
whom he lived fellow-servant; and she no sooner perceived the

natural, the dreaded consequence, than the terrible conviction
flashed on her--that she was ruined. Honesty, and a regard for her

reputation, had been the only principles inculcated by her mother;
and they had been so forcibly impressed, that she feared shame,

more than the poverty to which it would lead. Her incessant
importunities to prevail upon my father to screen her from reproach

by marrying her, as he had promised in the fervour of seduction,
estranged him from her so completely, that her very person became

distasteful to him; and he began to hate, as well as despise me,
before I was born.

"My mother, grieved to the soul by his neglect, and unkind
treatment, actuallyresolved" target="_blank" title="a.决心的；坚定的">resolved to famish herself; and injured her

health by the attempt; though she had not sufficient resolution to
adhere to her project, or renounce it entirely. Death came not at

her call; yet sorrow, and the methods she adopted to conceal her
condition, still doing the work of a house-maid, had such an effect

on her constitution, that she died in the wretched" target="_blank" title="a.可怜的；倒霉的">wretchedgarret, where
her virtuousmistress had forced her to take refuge in the very

pangs of labour, though my father, after a slight reproof, was
allowed to remain in his place--allowed by the mother of six

children, who, scarcely permitting a footstep to be heard,
during her month's indulgence, felt no sympathy for the

poor wretch, denied every comfort required by her situation.
"The day my mother, died, the ninth after my birth, I was

consigned to the care of the cheapest nurse my father could find;
who suckled her own child at the same time, and lodged as many more

as she could get, in two cellar-like apartments.
"Poverty, and the habit of seeing children die off her hands,

had so hardened her heart, that the office of a mother did not
awaken the tenderness of a woman; nor were the feminine caresses

which seem a part of the rearing of a child, ever bestowed on me.
The chicken has a wing to shelter under; but I had no bosom to

nestle in, no kindredwarmth to foster me. Left in dirt, to cry
with cold and hunger till I was weary, and sleep without ever being

prepared by exercise, or lulled by kindness to rest; could I be
expected to become any thing but a weak and rickety babe? Still,

in spite of neglect, I continued to exist, to learn to curse
existence, [her countenance grew ferocious as she spoke,] and the

treatment that rendered me miserable, seemed to sharpen my wits.
Confined then in a damp hovel, to rock the cradle of the succeeding

tribe, I looked like a little old woman, or a hag shrivelling into
nothing. The furrows of reflection and care contracted the youthful

cheek, and gave a sort of supernatural wildness to the ever watchful
eye. During this period, my father had married another

fellow-servant, who loved him less, and knew better how to manage
his passion, than my mother. She likewise proving with child, they

agreed to keep a shop: my step-mother, if, being an illegitimate
offspring, I may venture thus to characterize her, having obtained

a sum of a rich relation, for that purpose.
"Soon after her lying-in, she prevailed on my father to take

me home, to save the expense of maintaining me, and of hiring a
girl to assist her in the care of the child. I was young, it was

true, but appeared a knowing little thing, and might be made handy.
Accordingly I was brought to her house; but not to a home--for a

home I never knew. Of this child, a daughter, she was extravagantly
fond; and it was a part of my employment, to assist to spoil her,

by humouring all her whims, and bearing all her caprices. Feeling
her own consequence, before she could speak, she had learned the

art of tormenting me, and if I ever dared to resist, I received
blows, laid on with no compunctious hand, or was sent to bed

dinnerless, as well as supperless. I said that it was a part of
my daily labour to attend this child, with the servility of a slave;

still it was but a part. I was sent out in all seasons, and from
place to place, to carry burdens far above my strength, without

being allowed to draw near the fire, or ever being cheered by
encouragement or kindness. No wonder then, treated like a creature

of another species, that I began to envy, and at length to hate,
the darling of the house. Yet, I perfectly remember, that it was

the caresses, and kind expressions of my step-mother, which first
excited my jealousdiscontent. Once, I cannot forget it, when she

was calling in vain her wayward child to kiss her, I ran to her,
saying, 'I will kiss you, ma'am!' and how did my heart, which was

in my mouth, sink, what was my debasement of soul, when pushed away
with--'I do not want you, pert thing!' Another day, when a new gown

had excited the highest good humour, and she uttered the appropriate
dear, addressed unexpectedly to me, I thought I could never do

enough to please her; I was all alacrity, and rose proportionably
in my own estimation.

"As her daughter grew up, she was pampered with cakes and
fruit, while I was, literallyspeaking, fed with the refuse of the

table, with her leavings. A liquorish tooth is, I believe, common
to children, and I used to steal any thing sweet, that I could

catch up with a chance of concealment. When detected, she was not
content to chastize me herself at the moment, but, on my father's

return in the evening (he was a shopman), the principal discourse
was to recount my faults, and attribute them to the wicked disposition

which I had brought into the world with me, inherited from my
mother. He did not fail to leave the marks of his resentment on my

body, and then solaced himself by playing with my sister.--I could
have murdered her at those moments. To save myself from these

unmerciful corrections, I resorted to falshood, and the untruths
which I sturdily maintained, were brought in judgment against me,

to support my tyrant's inhuman charge of my natural propensity to
vice. Seeing me treated with contempt, and always being fed and

dressed better, my sister conceived a contemptuous opinion of me,
that proved an obstacle to all affection; and my father, hearing

continually of my faults, began to consider me as a curse entailed
on him for his sins: he was therefore easily prevailed on to bind

me apprentice to one of my step-mother's friends, who kept a
slop-shop in Wapping. I was represented (as it was said) in my

true colours; but she, 'warranted,' snapping her fingers,
'that she should break my spirit or heart.'

"My mother replied, with a whine, 'that if any body could make
me better, it was such a clever woman as herself; though, for her

own part, she had tried in vain; but good-nature was her fault.'
"I shudder with horror, when I recollect the treatment I had

now to endure. Not only under the lash of my task-mistress, but
the drudge of the maid, apprentices and children, I never had a

taste of human kindness to soften the rigour of perpetual labour.
I had been introduced as an object of abhorrence into the family;

as a creature of whom my step-mother, though she had been kind
enough to let me live in the house with her own child, could make

nothing. I was described as a wretch, whose nose must be kept to
the grinding stone--and it was held there with an iron grasp. It

seemed indeed the privilege of their superior nature to kick me
about, like the dog or cat. If I were attentive, I was called

fawning, if refractory, an obstinate mule, and like a mule I received
their censure on my loaded back. Often has my mistress, for some

instance of forgetfulness, thrown me from one side of the kitchen
to the other, knocked my head against the wall, spit in my face,

with various refinements on barbarity that I forbear to enumerate,
though they were all acted over again by the servant, with additional

insults, to which the appellation of bastard, was commonly added,
with taunts or sneers. But I will not attempt to give you

an adequate idea of my situation, lest you, who probably have
never been drenched with the dregs of human misery,

should think I exaggerate.
"I stole now, from absolute necessity,--bread; yet whatever

else was taken, which I had it not in my power to take, was ascribed
to me. I was the filching cat, the ravenous dog, the dumb brute,

who must bear all; for if I endeavoured to exculpate myself, I was
silenced, without any enquiries being made, with 'Hold your tongue,

you never tell truth.' Even the very air I breathed was tainted
with scorn; for I was sent to the neighbouring shops with Glutton,

Liar, or Thief, written on my forehead. This was, at first, the
most bitter punishment; but sullen pride, or a kind of stupid

desperation, made me, at length, almost regardless of the contempt,
which had wrung from me so many solitary tears at the only moments

when I was allowed to rest.
"Thus was I the mark of cruelty till my sixteenth year; and

then I have only to point out a change of misery; for a period I