The overseer assured us that we would not be sold. He said that Master Brodas willed his plantation to a young heir. But he was too young to handle the affairs so his guardian, Dr. Anthony Thompson a minister in Bucktown, was appointed to run things. I knew that I would be considered an undesirable slave once he heard that I had defied an overseer. Would my rebellious spirit influence other slaves? Even the other slaves looked at me differently. They began to look up to me, and started paying attention to things I had to say. Even my mother started to treat me differently. She had stopped calling me Minty and started calling me Harriet.
Dr. Thompson tried to sell me while I was sick, but no one would consider even me. After I was able to work again, he hired both my father and me out to a builder named John Stewart. At first I had to work inside the house. I hated doing that kind of work all day; cleaning, dusting, making beds and washing clothes. Besides, the house was near the woods and I could hear the sounds of those of singing axes and trees falling. After a few months, I asked Mister Stewart if I could work in the woods with the men. I told him that I always did field work and that I could swing an axe just as good as them. He knew that I was strong. He also knew that he had gotten me for the price of a young woman. And that if he good get the work done of a man, then he would have good bargain. So he gave me a chance.