the end of the week. Knowing no
written character but the figure 5 he kept this account by means of a
curious system of hieroglyphics in which straight marks meant horse
shoes put on, circles, cart-wheels fixed, etc. One day in happening to
see his master's book he noticed that wherever five and one were added
the figure 6 was used. Having practiced this till he could make it he
ever after used it in his accounts. As his master was looking over these
one day, he noticed the new figure and compelled the slave to tell how
he had learned it. He flew into a rage, and said, "I'll teach you how to
be learning new figures," and picking up a horse-shoe threw it at him,
but fortunately for the audacious chattel, missed his aim.
Notwithstanding his ardent desire for liberty, the slave considered it
his duty to remain in bondage until he was twenty-one years old in order
to repay by his labor the trouble and expense which his master had had
in rearing him. On the evening of his twenty-first anniversary he turned
his face toward the North star, and started for a land of freedom.
Arriving at Reisterstown, a village on the Westminster turnpike about
twenty-five miles from Baltimore and thirty-five miles from Mr. Wright's
house, he was arrested and placed in the bar-room of the country tavern
in care of the landlady to wait until his captors, having finished some
work in which they were engaged, could take him back to his master. The
landlady, being engaged in getting supper, set him to watch the cakes
that were baking. As she was passing back and forth he ostentatiously
removed his hat, coat, and shoes, and placed them in the bar-room.
Having done this, he said to her, "I will step out a moment." This he
did, she sending a boy to watch him. When the boy came out he appeared
to be very sick and called hastily for water. The boy ran in to get it.
Now was his golden opportunity. Jumping the fence he ran to a clump of
trees which occupied low ground behind the house and concealing himself
in it for a moment, ran and continued to run, he knew not whither, until
he found himself at the toll gate near Petersburg, in Adams county.
Before this he had kept in the fields and forests, but now found himself
compelled to come out upon the road. The toll-gate keeper, seeing at
once that he was a fugitive, said to him, "I guess you don't know the
road." "I guess I can find it myself," was the reply. "Let me show you,"
said the man. "You may if you pl