ning:

"_To whom it may concern: This is to certify that the boy Joe Frampton
has my permission to visit his wife Lucinda._"

This was dated at Hillsborough, and signed "_John W. Evans_."

Calderwood read it twice, and then looked at Free Joe, elevating his
eyebrows, and showing his discolored teeth.

"Some mighty big words in that there. Evans owns this place, I reckon.
When's he comin' down to take hold?"

Free Joe fumbled with his hat. He was badly frightened.

"Lucindy say she speck you wouldn't min' my comin', long ez I behave,
marster."

Calderwood tore the pass in pieces and flung it away.

"Don't want no free niggers 'round here," he exclaimed. "There's the big
road. It'll carry you to town. Don't let me catch you here no more. Now,
mind what I tell you."

Free Joe presented a shabby spectacle as he moved off with his little
dog Dan slinking at his heels. It should be said in behalf of Dan,
however, that his bristles were up, and that he looked back and growled.
It may be that the dog had the advantage of insignificance, but it is
difficult to conceive how a dog bold enough to raise his bristles under
Calderwood's very eyes could be as insignificant as Free Joe. But both
the negro and his little dog seemed to give a new and more dismal aspect
to forlornness as they turned into the road and went toward
Hillsborough.

After this incident Free Joe appeared to have clearer ideas concerning
his peculiar condition. He realized the fact that though he was free he
was more helpless than any slave. Having no owner, every man was his
master. He knew that he was the object of suspicion, and therefore all
his slender resources (ah! how pitifully slender they were!) were
devoted to winning, not kindness and appreciation, but toleration; all
his efforts were in the direction of mitigating the circumstances that
tended to make his condition so much worse than that of the negroes
around him--negroes who had friends because they had masters.

So far as his own race was concerned, Free Joe was an exile. If the
slaves secretly envied him his freedom (which is to be doubted,
considering his miserable condition), they openly despised him, and lost
no opportunity to treat him with contumely. Perhaps this was in some
measure the result of the attitude which Free Joe chose to maintain
toward them. No doubt his instinct taught him that to hold himself aloof
from the slaves would be to invite from the whites the toleration w