carry, almost constantly, a copy of Webster's spelling book in
my pocket; and, when sent of errands, or when play time was allowed
me, I would step, with my young friends, aside, and take a lesson in
spelling. I generally paid my _tuition fee_ to the boys, with bread,
which I also carried in my pocket. For a single biscuit, any of my
hungry little comrades would give me a lesson more valuable to me than
bread. Not every one, however, demanded this consideration, for there
were those who took pleasure in teaching me, whenever I had a chance
to be taught by them. I am strongly tempted to give the names of two or
three of those little boys, as a slight testimonial of the gratitude and
affection I bear them, but prudence forbids; not that it would injure
me, but it might, possibly, embarrass them; for it is almost an
unpardonable offense to do any thing, directly or indirectly, to
promote a slave's freedom, in a slave state. It is enough to say, of
my warm-hearted little play fellows, that they lived on Philpot street,
very near Durgin & Bailey's shipyard.

Although slavery was a delicate subject, and very cautiously talked
about among grown up people in Maryland, I frequently talked about
it--and that very freely--with the white boys. I{122} would, sometimes,
say to them, while seated on a curb stone or a cellar door, "I wish
I could be free, as you will be when you get to be men." "You will be
free, you know, as soon as you are twenty-one, and can go where you
like, but I am a slave for life. Have I not as good a right to be free
as you have?" Words like these, I observed, always troubled them; and I
had no small satisfaction in wringing from the boys, occasionally, that
fresh and bitter condemnation of slavery, that springs from nature,
unseared and unperverted. Of all consciences let me have those to deal
with which have not been bewildered by the cares of life. I do not
remember ever to have met with a _boy_, while I was in slavery, who
defended the slave system; but I have often had boys to console me, with
the hope that something would yet occur, by which I might be made free.
Over and over again, they have told me, that "they believed I had as
good a right to be free as _they_ had;" and that "they did not believe
God ever made any one to be a slave." The reader will easily see, that
such little conversations with my play fellows, had no tendency to
weaken my love of liberty, nor to render me contented with my condit