[Following the death of their father Samuel] My sister and my brother Thomas were both bound out in the same family. I do not recollect that it was a Quaker family in which they lived, but believe that it was, as the inmates thereof had many of the habits of that people, this excepted, humane conduct, the offspring of an enlarged possession of the milk of human kindness. For the residence of this family, my sister and myself at length started, and where we arrived on the same day.

In this family there was another bound boy beside my brother, and of about the same age of my sister. This boy and my sister were taken sick, and at about the same time. The sickness I do not know whether I ever understood properly what it was, but I remember it was some kind of a fever. Their sick-beds were in a room up stairs, and my brother and myself made a fire in the room and attended to them.

My sister grew worse, and on an evening not long after, she died. We had told the old people of her situation, but they manifested no great concern. When she was dying we called them, and they came up, but the vital spark was fast quitting its abode of clay. It sped its way to Him who is a Father to the fatherless, the orphan's stay and the widow's hope.

The old people laid her out, and had grave clothes and a coffin prepared, and on the next day they took her in a light wagon to a Meeting House about a mile off, and they buried her in a grave yard attached thereto. My brother and myself accompanied them. This must have been late in the month of December, 1777, or January, '78. I remember that the weather was quite cold.

The boy, although he lay very low, recovered his health again. The old people, I recollect, bestowed a good deal more attention towards him after my sister's death than they had previous.4293