Thirty Years a Slave, and Four Years in the White House) by Elizabeth Keckley

My mother, my poor aged mother, go among strangers to toil for a living! No, a thousand times no ! I would rather work my fingers to the bone, bend over my sewing till the film of blindness gathered in my eyes ; nay, even beg from street to street. I told Mr. Garland so, and he gave me permission to see what I could do. I was fortunate in obtaining work, and in a short time I had acquired something of a reputation as a seamstress and dress-maker. The best ladies in St. Louis were my patrons, and when my reputation was once established I never lacked for orders. With my needle I kept bread in the mouths of seventeen persons for two years and five months.

While I was working so hard that others might live in comparative comfort, and move in those circles of society to which their birth gave them entrance, the thought often occurred to me whether I was really worth my salt or not; and then perhaps the lips curled with a bitter sneer.